Seat removal when power not available...
Posted: Sun Jun 06, 2021 11:34 pm
Ran into this when stripping my 2001 - after gutting the engine compartment, I started on the interior, then realized I had stupidly left the front seats in the rearward position, blocking that one bolt. What to do?
Since it was a do-or-die scenario, I opened the factory repair manual and found the schematics for the seats. Turns out the motor that runs the horizontal control is positioned so that the 2-wire power connector is barely accessible, and applying power to one wire and ground to the other will rotate the motor.
Power to the tan wire moves the seat forward, power to the green wire moves it backward. Used jumper wires, a switch, and a fuse hooked up to a battery.
The only hitch is getting the connections tight enough to not pull excessive amps. I finally got one seat to move just by inserting spade terminals into the back of the connector, but the other seat I could not get a tight enough connection, and had issues with the jumper wires I was using turning red-hot. Blew a 40-amp fuse, too.
I finally clipped the wire connector off of the first seat motor, spliced my jumpers to that, plugged the connector into the socket under the seat, and it worked like a charm. Once I had the wiring setup rigged up, it was fairly easy (although a bit painful - the working area is tight!) to plug in the connector.
Since it was a do-or-die scenario, I opened the factory repair manual and found the schematics for the seats. Turns out the motor that runs the horizontal control is positioned so that the 2-wire power connector is barely accessible, and applying power to one wire and ground to the other will rotate the motor.
Power to the tan wire moves the seat forward, power to the green wire moves it backward. Used jumper wires, a switch, and a fuse hooked up to a battery.
The only hitch is getting the connections tight enough to not pull excessive amps. I finally got one seat to move just by inserting spade terminals into the back of the connector, but the other seat I could not get a tight enough connection, and had issues with the jumper wires I was using turning red-hot. Blew a 40-amp fuse, too.
I finally clipped the wire connector off of the first seat motor, spliced my jumpers to that, plugged the connector into the socket under the seat, and it worked like a charm. Once I had the wiring setup rigged up, it was fairly easy (although a bit painful - the working area is tight!) to plug in the connector.
