I'm hoping to switch the crappy power seats from my 951 into my 1983 944 NA before I sell it, and then put the great manual seats from my '83 into the 951.

Are there power hook-ups in the 1983 to attach a power seat? If not, has anyone tried to cut the harness off of a parts car, hook it into the existing electrical system of the 1983, and power the seats that way?

Thanks!

 

I've had the seats out of both my mom's 84 and my old 85, and neither had the power wire for the powered seats. However it should be easy to tap some voltage somewhere and splice a wire in. I heard early/late seats are not interchangable because of the seatbelt harness (early, it is bolted to the tunnel, late it is part of the seat). Those manual seats nice - good luck!

PS did you get my emails about the dash?

 

Thanks Arash. Got your messages! I need to call your bro this week and have him come over.

P.S. Project 951 started up on the first crank, without a hiccup this afternoon! I'm going for a test drive after dinner. Can't wait to finally drive this car. Wahoo!

 

You can put a later seat into an early car, but an early seat wont work in a later car because there is no seatbelt, or hole in the chassis for the seatbelt bolt.

 

Late cars still have the extra reinforcement on the tunnel though, if you pull back the carpet you can drill it out, mount a backing plate underneath, and then bolt up the seat belt buckles to the tunnel like the early cars... Personally I'm doing it to mount harnesses, but you could easily use it for the stock belts too.

 

I'm diggin' up this old thread 'cause now I'm putting late seats into an early car, and I need to know the best wire to tap for the 12V power for the motors. I already grounded to the handbrake area, and I checked for continuity - it's a good ground. I thought it would be better to get a power source that comes on with the ignition only - so it can't be used (or drain power) while the ignition is off. Any thoughts?

 

Hey, I have later power seats in my early car, and I'm looking to hook up the power at some stage. The PO installed the seats and gave me the leads with them - but they're cut quite short. I was going to make up a new set of leads.

Do you know which wire is which in terms of insulation colour etc?

For power I was going to get the wiring diagrams out this evening, but I think that the same feed as the power windows should be what we are looking for... only on when the ignition is on...

 

My seats came with the plastic molex missing - the 4 leads were just dangling loosely. I made some crimps and short lengths of wire, connecting the + and - for the two motors together. I think it would be fine for them to share power. I ran the - to the handbrake area. I put a inline 30A fuse on the +, right under the seat, and ran the + wire under the handbrake, under the carpet, up to the door sill, and along the sill toward the fusebox area. For now I can install the seat and use it, and figure out where to splice in the + wire later on.

Power windows would be a great source. Nobody would use windows and seat adjustment at the same time, so the circuit would never get over loaded.

 

cigarette lighter works well, it's what I used, ran wires from the back of it.

 

I bought a plug and length of wire out of a junk car, and tapped the radio.

 

You can run wire from the battery with an inline fuse.

Thats what we did on a friends car.

fwiw, the seats in my late car have power all the time, even if the key is not in the ignition