2nd Gen Non-Engine/Transmission Power seat upgrade

[QWaller]

I seached andknow this has been danced around alot, so here goes. I have a manual seat 98 that I want to put a 2000 power seat in. The 98 has a large connector that has 9 or so wires in it and they snake through the frontseats. I guess it is all the sensors to the airbags, belts et. The only wire on the 2000 junkyards are a single connector with 3 wires and one goes to the seatbelt latch. The other seats don't seem to have any. Any suggestions from anyone. Thanks

 

[QWaller]

Does anyone know if the seats are safe to use if the sensors are not hooked up? Will the retactors lock appropriately? Anyone know?

 

[LBARTLETT]

I've asked a couple of times about upgrading my 01' manual to electric, trying to find out if all 01's were wired for electric, searched the forums to no avail, maybe someone will chime in that knows

 

[lawrence47]

Hello, Larry here. I'm an electronic's tech/maintenance mechanic retired. I purchased my 1996 Dodge Ram2500 turbo diesel about 7 weeks ago and had questions with items that weren't working like the cruise control system. I purchased a complete service manual for my truck in pdf format on cd from BISHKO Automotive Literature. This is the complete shop manual with electrical and all mechanical aspects covered. It will offer the information that you require on all aspects of installing the 2000 seats in your manual seat rig. Good luck.

 

[QWaller]

It appears with a little more searching that seats made from 2000 and 2001 no longer contain the electonics in the belt locking mechanism (back to the old inertial mechanical system). They should be the easiest to convert. In my case I do not have a show truck. I may simply leave the exisitng wiring and hide it, put my "new" set of seats in and power up the seat motors. That's my story and I am sticking to it. (at least until someone smart tells me why it won't work). I just don't want to have a wreck and fall all out in the road.

 

[budnate]

I just went through this, it wont work unless you find a '98 power seat harness.



'98's have a special seatbelt retractors that send a small elec signal to hold or release in a wreck or day to day use and they plug into the black box under the jump seat and it gets powered up when you start the truck, they lock down with no power and will not let go until the whole mess is plugged in and powered up!!.



01's have the box incase you flip the truck but the belts are stand alone and dont need power to work.



I just redid my seats in my '98 and had 01/98 seats to make one nice set... ... I have good pics of everything apart if anyone is curious.



B.

 

[QWaller]

The seats I have are a complete set. the belts and retractors all from a 2000 truck which work with no electicity. I am thinking that worst case, I keep my existing sensors, cut them out of the seat back and leave them hooked up in order to trick my truck into thinking all is fine. As I said I can stuff whatever under the seat. I never use the area anyway. I just know that the stock manual seat I currently have is very poor fitting to my body and my previous Dodges all had power seats that I liked.

 

[budnate]

not sure if you will throw a seatbelt trouble light or not having a open on the retractor, there is actually 4 wires that go up and plug into the retractor top and bottom to complete the seatbelt circuit, its not really to hard to move the the wiring and '98 retractors into the '01 seats, thats what I did. I can email over a bunch of pictures of the whole process if someone wants to post them.



oh, and the '01 seats have wires on the female seatbelts that have to be made to not throw a light when running.



B.

 

[QWaller]

Got the seats in last night and they work well. I kept the 98 wiring and box under the center seat. Right now the retactor wires are just hanging free, and yes it does cause the seatbelt light to stay on. Will deal with that once I see the best solution (currently I will put a piece of electical tape over the light for the weekend trip but my butt and back will thank me). If crossing the correct wires in the leads would fix it I would do that. Or possibly utilize the retractors somehow from the 98 seats.

 

[LBARTLETT]

under the manual seat of my 2001 I have a loom with 3 wires going into a plug with 2 wires coming out



does anyone know if this 3rd wire is what powers the power seats? if it'sw as easy as mounting the seat and plugging it in I'm ready to order today!!



if not what whould I need to do.



Thanks for the help

 

[QWaller]

The power seat for a 2000 that I bought only has a 3 wire plug coming out to go to a 3 wire plug that would have been coming through the 2000's truck floor. One is hot, one neg and one goes to the female seatbelt recepticle to send signal that it is latched. A pos and neg got to the seat motors.

 

[LBARTLETT]

sounds like it will work for me QWaller, thanks for responding, I'm going to order one today, if it doesn't plug right in I'll worry about it when it gets here!!



My wife is only 4' 10" and it kills her to ride very far in my truck (that's why we have an 04' Ford 6. 0 PS dually too), somewhere on here I've seen guys doing power seat conversions on the passenger side for their wives. Once installed I may tackle that and see if I can convince here we don't need the Ford anymore. It's comfortable but the 5 year warranty endede in Dec. 08' and we've put about $5k in the engine since Feb. I'd love to see it go!!



Thanks again.

 

[budnate]

great, well your backside will thank you after running down the road a bit today, I have a extra power seat bottom and jump seat I am going to sell if anyone needs them.



B.

 

[4570]

Any of you guys using electric factory seats should know that if you run the seat all the way to one end of travel ,you will break a gear on one or both sides of the screws that move the seat. Atleast this has happened in my 96 and i bought a used seat rack and both of them are broke in it . Arnie

 

[LBARTLETT]

Arnie, so how do you fix that?

 

[4570]

There is no fix unless you can find a seat rack that some one is getting rid of that has a good screw gear in it. The whole thing comes apart easily but Dodge will only sell you the whole rack at about 400 dollars BTW i have three good motors if any one needs one . Arnie

 

[4570]

I did a little looking on the internet and couldnt find any thing in worm gears that would work on this mechanism . I took one of my shaft assemblies apart and cleaned all the grease off of it . It looks to me like the plastic has shrunk slightly over time and has stress cracks in it . That causes it to break when you put too much stress on it . I took the broken gear off the shaft and cleaned it up real good and found some super glue that is made for Nylon. Its called Plastic Surgery. I glued the gear back together and let it set over night . Now its too small to get back on the shaft so i filed out the inner diameter so it would slide on and aligned it with the weld on the shaft to match the inside of the gear. I put JB weld on the inside of the gear and on the shaft and shoved it all together . Now its setting over night to cure . If im lucky it might work again. Arnie

 

[LBARTLETT]

well, I found a deal on leather/power/heated seats, all I got was the 10 wire pig tail with the wires cut, I have 3 wires coming from the floor on my manual seat



anyone know if I can buy the factory harness that plugs into the truck from the seat or where I could get a wiring diagram? anyone done this