Seat Electrical Plug issue

[Scooblitz]

Got some new seats and door cards yesterday to bring the interior of the car up. Very please with the results from the standard cloth to leather. Did i quick coat of leather balm on the drivers side as thats all i had time for. On holiday from Wednesday and can complete the job.

Ran into an issue with connectors. So the second hand seats i picked up where from a 97 z3 m44 similar to mine, a 98' m44 however a drivers side seat connector doesn't match the connector on with the car. I believe it to be the airbag power connector. As pictured in the link. I'm trying to connect a 3 to a 4 it would seem

https://www.realoem.com/bmw/enUS/showparts?id=CH73-USA-01-1998-Z3-BMW-Z3_19&diagId=61_4937

The height adjuster does not seem to be functioning either. So im currently driving it around like im sitting in a truck with my head in the ceiling as its stick in max height.

Can anyone point in the direction of a decent solutuon. Perhaps i have bought post 1999 seats for a 1998?

Scooblitz

 

[Mario]

Hello

Two things, the seat height adjuster might be stuck, if you hear the motor click click trying to turn then all you need to do is turn the seat upside down outside the car and you will see a "metallic colored" mechanism on the underside as opposed to the rest of the frame that is all black, that metallic colored mechanism runs parallel to the tracks on one side, that mechanism is held with two nuts on one side, remove those and slide out that end of the the mechanism so you can rotate the "cage" on the adjuster screw with some pliers or a wrench, once you manage to rotate it freely clean it thoroughly and lubricate, normally all sorts of crap goes in there and jams the mechanism.

The 4 pole plug that you see on the car harness if for the heating, I guess your newer seats don't have that, now the connector coming from the seats, if you don't have any airbag lights on I guess it might be something else the airbag connector is the yellow one on your pic, I have seen some different designs for seats and on some there is a mechanism that stops the seats going back too far with a contact that disables the motor when the back part of the seat hits the rear bulkhead.that might be that connnector that you don't know where to plug. if your seats go up and down and back and forth and no airbag lights I would leave it be.

 

[Scooblitz]

It seems that i have have not connected everythng up properly. I don't have the height adjuster plugged in. Everything is working now however im now having trouble disconnecting the passenger seat to to take the seat out to clean and re-dye it. Cannot seem to see how to pry the connector off the module. only had it out yesterday with no issues. Its the connector on the passenger that is connector to the subframe with a little cross nobble that looks as though it would need to be twisted to come off.

 

[Mario]

Not sure if I am following the two motors plug on the main harness and then the main harness with the white plug goes in the car harness white plug, there is no need to disconnect any motors individually disconnect the main harness and the airbag plug and you can remove

 

[Scooblitz]

Update:

So I have managed to get the seats in but it would appear that the height adjustment motor on the drivers side may be inopperable. I Have no home for the black 4 pronged 'molex ' style plug on the drivers side.

The wiring set up of both passenger and drivers side are different from the original cloth seats. The orginal passenger seat has a 'BMW elektronic module where the leather seats do not so there is no home for a little white connector. As for the Drivers side, the leather interior subframe have no home for the molex, the cloth seats do but it doesnt seem to connect to anything.

If i try to engage the height adjustment, it does move the seat up and down 5mm and sounds like it is recieving electrical supply.

Possibles:

Could the motor be burnt out and not working?

Could the bolt gear need lubrication to turn into the nut

Square motor spindles are in firm in place.

...Or i've just not put the right connectors in

Scooblitz

 

[Mario]

If the motor turns then you will see the silver mechanism is held on one extreme with two nuts undo them and detach the mechanism on that extreme from the frame and rotate the cage on the screw manually with your hands or most probably you will need a wrench or something to help. Once the mechanism is is freed up put it back together and it should work.

 

[Scooblitz]

If the motor turns then you will see the silver mechanism is held on one extreme with two nuts undo them and detach the mechanism on that extreme from the frame and rotate the cage on the screw manually with your hands or most probably you will need a wrench or something to help. Once the mechanism is is freed up put it back together and it should work.

Hi Mario thanks for the response and help with this one. Would i need to split the seat from the subframe to gain access to the bolts? Another trip up and down the stairs too look forward to.

 

[Mario]

Nope you just turn the seat so you can see the base and the motors and you will see it quickly it's I think the only silver mechanism in the whole base

 

[Scooblitz]

It would appear that the bolt thread is no longer in the nut. Would explain everything. Cannot seem to make any turns of the bolt to lower the seat.

Suggestions welcome.

 

[Mazza]

This is the underside of my seat on a 1.9lt M44.
The yellow connector at the back ( top of picture) is the seat belt pyro connector. Small Red connector plugs in to this.
The white connector in the centre is the seat motor power connector. This is where the white 4 way connector plugs in. This feeds the switch on the side of the seat, which in turn powers the two motors.
The motor in the centre of the seat is the vertical adjustment, and drives a gearbox which turns the screw drive in the housing (silver part on the rhs)

The forward / back motor is at the front of the seat( missing in the picture) drives the two lugs at the bottom of the picture.
These are the R/angled gearbox lugs that drive the two screws hidden inside the side rails

If you have the seat out and want to remove the bottom metalwork, then you just undo the two nuts visible at the top and pull the metalwork upwards. The front end is only hooked into the seat base.

You can see the slots where the metal work hooks in each side at the bottom just above the cable tie.

Just to avoid confusion two plugs at the top of the picture are for the heat pads that I installed. When seat was back in these were connected to the black 4 way connector under the seat ( after a bit of modification !!!)

Hope this helps

 

[Scooblitz]

Hi Mazza

Thanks for the reply. Have located the seat height adjuster and bolt but after undoing the nut, I am unable to manually turn the nutvround to Lowe the seat rail down. Tried some wd40 but it just spins in the housing and not turning the bolt in the nut.

 

[Mario]

Hi Mazza

Thanks for the reply. Have located the seat height adjuster and bolt but after undoing the nut, I am unable to manually turn the nutvround to Lowe the seat rail down. Tried some wd40 but it just spins in the housing and not turning the bolt in the nut.

The bolt needs to spin in the housing and push it back and fort and when connected to the frame that is what raises/lowers the seat. If the motor turns and then when it does it turns the screw part of the mechanism inside the cage then you are golden. the cage needs to rotate freely when detached on the extreme and pulled from the seat, you should be able to move the cage all the way to each end of the screw manually with ease once freed and lubed

 

[Scooblitz]

I think that the bolt is stuck in place on the extreme. It won't seem to budge and turn to the right so i can tighten it. I might be missing a trick here but i can't seem to work it out how to get it to turn in the direction i need it to. The motor spindle turns the silver unit when its out the bracket.

Seems i will need to work out a way to force the silver section to turn to tighten.

 

[Stevo7682]

Don't break it

 

[Scooblitz]

Managed to get it done. Turns out it needed a real vigorous amount of lubrication to get it to move. Now in the car and fully functioning

Would i be right in assuming that the spare black molex style connector is a pre-wiring for the heated seats option?

Cheers for the help forum.

 

[Mazza]

Yes, the black one with two brown wires (earth) and two white wires ( feed from switch)

 

[Scooblitz]

The lad i bought the seats from said he swapped these out for the heated variants. My i secondly assume that all Z leather seats were shipped with prefab heating wiring but not the actual heated seat pads installed themselves or would these also be heated variants?

 

[Mazza]

While the car loom had the wiring installed, My seats had no heated seat wiring whatsoever. I had to remove the Leather covers and install the heat pads ( 2 for each seat)

Some where on the forum is a thread of what it did, with some photos.

 

[Scooblitz]

While the car loom had the wiring installed, My seats had no heated seat wiring whatsoever. I had to remove the Leather covers and install the heat pads ( 2 for each seat)

Some where on the forum is a thread of what it did, with some photos.

I didn't think i had got that lucky and got heated seats too. That will be an interesting thread. I imagine the BMW seat parts are hard to find to retrofit it?