240 Fun with heated seats

I have a 1989 245 DL with inoperable heated seats. Neither of the switched illuminate when they are turned on which tells me that there is a bad ground to the system, a bad power wire wire to the driver seat switch (fuse confirmed good), or some other crazy thing going on involving a botched wiring job.

Did you bet on number 3? Of course you did. Why else would I be making a thread?





Dear god! First of all, that dangling connector is supposed to be connected to the black wire which has clearly been yanked hard enough to no longer have a terminal. Second of all, why is this such a mess? Not a single wire is where it's supposed to be. Third, what up with the tar?


Here it is sorta cleaned upish.


Terminal rebent so that it actually stays in the connector body...


I removed the console and pulled this cute little guy out of there. I think I'm immune to the virus now.


I had to redrill the little self tapped ground on the bracket because it was completely stripped and not holding any of the ring terminals anymore. I don't think it's going to help the heated seat situation, but a fix is a fix!




Here's the seat back in after I cleaned up the wires a little bit.


Anyway, this was all for investigative purposes. I ran out of daylight, and put things back together before I could finish diagnostics. Here's where I am. Ground (D) is good which kinda surprised me given that the lights in the switches don't work either. There is no resistance between the switch (J and I) and ground (D). Power is also good. I have 12.4V at the switch (J and I) when the key (B) is on. When I come home tomorrow I will check to see if I have power and ground at the grid (C).

Questions:
What does everyone else's connector F look like? the female end on both seats is something stupid small like 20g wire. Is this normal? It sure doesn't seem large enough to power a heating grid. Also, does anybody have tips for cleaning up these old switches? Mine work, but the terminals are pretty corroded. I wonder if this alone is my illumination problem. Both bulbs appear good.

Did you check the grid for continuity? Could also be the little temperature switch in the grid. Mine was fine, just not actually connected to the grid anymore.

Cwazywazy said:

Could also be the little temperature switch in the grid.

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yep, it's labelled E in the diagram.

http://cleanflametrap.com/seatHeater.htm Seat Heater Testing

Thanks guys. I did end up checking continuity before I went to work because I knew it was going to bother me all day if I didn't. No dice. It looks like I'll be peeling the seat cover back as explained in Art's guide.

on my drivers seat I cut out the thermostat and soldered in a piece of wire, maybe not the best idea, but it sure gets warm and comfy now!

philski o'flood said:

on my drivers seat I cut out the thermostat and soldered in a piece of wire, maybe not the best idea, but it sure gets warm and comfy now!

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Is that a common thing to fail? I saw that it's often a broken connector.

mine wasn't getting very warm with a working thermostat

I'd get a set of heaters from wagonmeister if I were you. Much easier, way less hassle. All the stock ones are dead.


See here: https://photos.app.goo.gl/eSXaVMn8JbAgyvQ46

Harlard said:

I'd get a set of heaters from wagonmeister if I were you. Much easier, way less hassle. All the stock ones are dead.


See here: https://photos.app.goo.gl/eSXaVMn8JbAgyvQ46

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Thanks for the tip. Looks like good stuff. If I'm going that deep, I'll for sure get a grid and heater kit for both seats. I wish somebody was making foam

I almost forgot that that I can take my time with this! I have the seats from my old wagon in the basement. One even has a known good heater, so that could be helpful for diagnostics. I wish seat foam was a bit cheaper, but I think I'll manage with what I have.

I do need to make mine hotter. On a cold morning it gives me a sliiiightly warm bum then shuts off and doesn't come back on. The heater in my '88 244 wasn't spectacular but it would actually turn back on to maintain bum warmth.

Take care with your mods. In the past 20 years I've read a story or two about monkeyed seat heaters being the cause of a serious carbecue.

cleanflametrap said:

Take care with your mods. In the past 20 years I've read a story or two about monkeyed seat heaters being the cause of a serious carbecue.

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I agree with this. I'd prefer to keep the thermostat in place. Personally, I don't like having winter swamp ass anyway. In my C30, the hotter of the two settings is only on when I first get in the car. Then I turn it off within a block or two. lol On the other hand, my fiance could probably leave the seat heater on all year long without realizing anything. I need that protection!

Seat heater kits have come a long way. Many now come as a seat and back rest kit with hi low switches.

I bought the wagonmeister kit along with the grids. I hope I don't regret not buying seat foam. I'm thinking for now I'll wrap the foam in another big piece of fabric before putting it together so that I can avoid weekly vacuum jobs.

Anyway, after confirming continuity I cleaned and installed the torn up driver seat from my old car. It warmed up very quickly too! No it's not blazing, but it's adequate. I never found out what happened to light in the switch, but I'm not going to worry about that right now. Warm butts for the winter is the first priority.

I noticed some interesting stuff after looking at the old seat. There's a little trim piece on the back which the back that seems to be missing. I might have to transfer this over.


There's a little clip that's supposed to hold the wires in place. That would have helped my seat had the wires been routed properly to begin with. I'll transfer that as well. Also notice that the wire is a lot thicker than the one I posted earlier. This looks a lot more normal.


However, this seat has seen better days. I really wish I could get the stock '89 style seat covers. They look so much better IMO. At the same time, I didn't even realize that mine were wrong until now. I'm going to leave that alone. At least both front seats match.






Next to my sketchy desk chair for reference.

Most of the foam is fixable. I like to use microfiber towels as batting/reinforcement.

Harlard said:

Most of the foam is fixable. I like to use microfiber towels as batting/reinforcement.

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How do you go about keeping them in place? Is there some kind of glue that works well? That's good to know though. Thanks for the reassurance.

I like to use 3M Spray 80 cement for foam repairs and gluing.

Is nobody going to talk about that awesome desk chair? Gives off the same vibe as the old Top Gear UK car seat sofa.

daniels740 said:

Is nobody going to talk about that awesome desk chair? Gives off the same vibe as the old Top Gear UK car seat sofa.

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Haha I thought it was a perfect thing to do since the fancy desk chair had seen better days, and I had an orphan Volvo seat in great shape. However, it's not as easy as it looks. I just made a simple bracket out of four pieces of flat stock. I centered the chair on that which was a bad move. The balance is way off for one. If you pop a squat you are likely going all the way back. If you do it too fast I'm pretty sure the whole chair would fall over. Good thing for the neck savers! It's also too tall in the all the way down position. Needless to say, I don't sit in it much. I could fix it, but I'd have to be pretty bored. There's a lot more to a chair than one would think!

I'm probably making one of those tables pretty soon too. I have a 3800 block that's pretty worthless to me and a flat Electro-Motive train windshield. That sucker is THICK and heavy.