Building for the Wife...

[djtimyd]

Went to visit my mom today, and decided to swing by a upullit place on the way home. I found a really nice set of liberty seats from a limited. They are power, heated leather seats and I bought the fronts and the rear bench.

My concern is this: the donner vehicle was a 2003b while mine is a 2005. i have heard that the air bag sensor on the seat is different. Is this true? how difficult is it to either rewire or swap the sensors?

i havent looked to see if my 05 has power plugs on the passenger side, but if not, i took the wiring harness and enough extra wire to make it work.

any thoughts on the air bag sensor? thanks!

 

[djtimyd]

Here are the Junk Yard seats I found for the KJ:

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I tore into Jeepy today (that is the name that has been bestowed upon the wife's jeep) and to my dismay I did not find hidden plugs for the power. So now I need to tap into existing wires. I can already tell the wire colors are different from the donor jeep to this one, so I cant just color match. I have heated, power seats with lots and lots of wiring harness from the donor KJ - any translation suggestions? I was hoping that I could tap into wires under the carpet or near enough... If I have to go all the way to the fuse box, I might have bitten off more than I can chew for a Sunday afternoon.

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[djtimyd]

wiring for power seats (03 --> 05)

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the wiring harness for the seats (2003) has 4 wires for power. I am going to assume that the red with white stripe is the +12v, and the black with white stripe is ground. That leaves 2 wires in the old (green and a very pale green/blue) that I would guess are the seat belt buckle wires? :help::icon_question: The two wires I have going into my 2005 seats are green and green with white strip (see above) and they go to the seat belt buckle.

I also have a red with blue stripe going to the heater connector, and I would also assume that this is power? :help::icon_question: The black with white strip that is ground is shared with the ground from the power seat plug. That leaves a brown with pink stripe that goes to both and is joined and then went to the fuse box on the '03. I have no clue what that wire is for.

Any ideas would be greatly appreciated!

 

[djtimyd]

Here is a quick rendering I did of the 03 plug with the colors:

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And here is a rendering of the wires going to the plug that's a combo of what I have with the 05 (two green wires) and the addition of the power and ground

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I don't know how to match up the blue and green from the 03 to the green and green w/ white strip on the 05 - or if it even matters which is which.

I'll need to run power, and I think that I'll try for the sun roof line since I don't have one, nor will I ever - and its switched and of high enough amps that I shouldn't have to worry.

Any thoughts or suggestions?:icon_question:

 

[djtimyd]

I did a test run tonight, and I was able to install the driver seat and power it with an add a circuit in the sunroof fuse location. this is temporary as ill wire it permanently to the back of the fuse block but i wanted to make sure it was working, and it is. I used my sketch-up above and it worked like it should. ill post pictures in the morning.

 

[djtimyd]

A day late...

I decided to do some cleaning while I had the carpet pulled up. Somebody spilled some soda and left it there without cleaning it up. Mild surface rust and a sticky carpet. While there isn't much I can do right now about the carpet, I can clean up the rust. I used my drill and round wire brush to remove the surface rust and then I painted over it with some Hammered Finnish silver paint. It matches the original perfectly and below you can see the results:

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I decided to put the wiring harness in even though it wasn't hooked up, partly because that would get it out of my way, but mostly because that would give me the push i needed to get it working. After putting the carpet back and the original seat back, I decided to do some final checks of the wiring to make sure I was on the right track.

2005_______________-> 2003
green with tan stripe ----> blue
green with grey stripe ---> green

AND

Red with BLUE stripe is power for the seat

Wednesday night, with the help of my wonderful wife, I swapped out the seat. I had earlier bought an "add-a-circuit" fuse replacement thingy so I tapped into the sun-roof circuit, ran the wire down to where the carpet ended up front and my wires were sticking out, used a wire nut to join them and plugged it in and...

... nuthn.

I was sunk. I thought that I had spent good money on bad seats. My wife suggested I try the passenger seat to verify. After verifying that the power wires were in the right spot, I took the drivers seat out and put in the passenger seat and still... nuthin.

Time to break out the volt meter.

I wasn't getting anything at the cable plug, but I was getting power at the fuse. I traced it back... and the wire nut was too small and the two wires weren't joined. I twisted them together and presto - power seat!

Sometimes its the little things...](*,)

I soldered that connection and wrapped it in electrical tape. that'll do until I get to putting a wire into the back of the fuse block connector. I don't have the heat running, but now that I have proven that my wiring guesstimations were correct, I'll worry about that when I get the chance to put the wire into the fuse block proper-like.

The sun is super extra bright today, but here is the power seat installed:

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I like it a lot (my XJ has manual leather seats so I'm used to the feel), and my wife will take a little getting used to them. They are hands down more comfortable than the 2005 seats, and not half destroyed like the one I took out. This weekend we'll be putting the back seat in, and I'll be working on building the passenger seat with the air-bag sensor from the 2005 swapped to the 2003.

I will also make a full How-To on this. I realize that there is already one on how to add leather seats - I've contributed to it myself. But the wiring that I have had to deal with is different from every other example in there. So if somebody can benefit from my trials -- and errors -- all the better.

 

[djtimyd]

My wife and I installed the rear seats. It took more time cleaning the new seats from the salvage yard and then cleaning under the carpet in our KJ then it did to remove and install. No soda spills this time, but I'm pretty sure the hairy dog that they had took a ****** :dancingpoop: in the back and they either didn't know or didn't care. That was fun cleaning up...puke.gif

Tomorrow I work on moving the air bag bladder from the '05 seat to the '03 seat. That should prove challenging!

 

[djtimyd]

Moved the bladder and now have a front passenger seat that is power, heated and leather - and doesn't cause any dash lights to go off. I took a ton of pictures, but I'll post them in my how-to that I make for this task. I'll have to address the power to the heat down the road when I get a more accurate idea of how to put wires into the junction block connector on the back of the fuse block.

 

[djtimyd]

I have been lucky recently with salvage yard finds! I have found thus far:

5 Alloy Rims with Tires & TPMS - $185
Power Heated Leather seats - $100
EVIC - $25
Factory CD Changer - $17
HD Fan - $21
Fog Lights - $32
Trailer Wiring & Plug - $15

Plus about $50 in misc trim and electrical stuff
and I went to eBay for the Nav Radio - $100

All the upgrades have cost less than $550. Comparing that to what a Limited trim model cost over a Sport - I think I'm way ahead.

Installing this stuff has also allowed me to learn about this jeep - so that down the road, when its a replacement part not an upgrade, I have a better knowledge of this jeep. I did the same thing with my XJ and it made it easier for when the waterpump died - I wasn't afraid to tear into it because I already had!

Speaking of which, the power steering pump on the KJ is leaking - so that looks like a job for the near future. I have been told that I'll need to replace the high-pressure lines for it as well. I found a crown replacement on Amazon for about $90 plus $15 for the pulley. Anybody have good or bad experience with Crown? I have used rubber trim from them for my XJ but never mechanical parts. If not crown, then other suggestions?

 

[djtimyd]

I installed the fog lights. When I found them at the salvage yard, I took not only the lights, but the complete wiring harness for the headlights/fog-lights combo as well. This was a super easy addition to make, except for getting a connector to come undone with 12 years worth of dirt sticking it together. I think this would be easier than the retrofit installation kit because it involved no splicing whatsoever. It was all plug and play and the wife is happy, especially with winter coming.

We went wheeling this past weekend in my XJ. Some of the trail was pretty technical and she was a little freaked out when I was on two wheels going over wet rocks... but all in all it was fun. My next challenge is to get her behind the wheel - even if its an easy trail.

 

[Ventsan]

Looks good! Power seats are definitely something I want to install into my Libby soon.

 

[djtimyd]

when i get the heated part connected properly and the power part connected properly, I'll do a formal write-up of how I did it. Hopefully someone can benefit from my trials and errors

 

[djtimyd]

I've encountered a problem with the fog lights. I think I have it narrowed down to the donor wiring harness - but I'll have to take it back out to be sure. I am annoyed that I didn't test this before stuffing the wires inside the jeep. Its much easier to test when I have access to everything. When it warms up, that will be my project.

 

[djtimyd]

FIXED! It was the connector for the wiring harness. Cleaned and bent the pins inward just a bit to force a good connection then smeared some dielectric grease on it to prevent any further corrosion. Next project is the front mudflaps!

 

[djtimyd]

Today I will be experimenting with my door and window and mirror switches. My '05 switches are not illuminated in the door, nor is the second row illuminated in the master switch. I took some from the salvage yard and I'll be testing out the older replacements (all from an '02) in the '05. I know some people don't like the extra illumination, but both my wife and I agree that having a small light to guide the fingers when its dark outweighs the slight increase in ambient cabin light.

 

[djtimyd]

failure... and success!... and failure... and sorta failure

The door lock switches do not work... and I can see why. The plug is a 4 wire plug, and at least on the '05 KJ, there are only 2 wires to that plug - the 2 outside wires. The 2 inside wires go directly to the LED (or the spot where the LED should be).

So now I have to see how to tap into a 12v ignition switched wire in the door. I dont know if one exists because the mirror power is on all the time (as far as I know) and the defrost is only on when the defrost relay is on. I don't know if it is possible to tap into the wire for the door lock switch itself or not, and if I do will that cause issues.

The mirror switch worked like a champ - just plugged the old one in and it now glows green as God intended.

And regarding the master front window switch... It plugged in and even illuminated all the LEDs on the older switch, but the front windows don't operate. I was afraid of this because when I looked at the circuit boards, they had obvious differences. I'll see what, if anything can be done there, but I'm guessing that will have to be a hack-job to get the light to those two back switches on that master panel.

 

[justjeeps]

use tapatalk on your phone.

I'd suggest also upgrading to the HD cooling as well if it doesn't have any.

TPMS?? move along...

I recently removed mine... Never seen my 03 get hot with standard electric fan and that included towing my daughters Saturn across town. One thing is for sure you knew you were at the max tow limit with respect to weight behind you..

my 02 had the heavy duty cooling and I gladly pulled it off with the water pump change... no room to work with!! when trying to remove the fan shroud - I think the heavy duty cooling has a bit larger shroud because I did not have the clearance issue with my o3 when pulling the rad..

mind you to each is his own perhaps it is really hot where the op lives.