Tom R.

I bought 12 way seats and am happy with the purchase. I installed the passenger seat, no problem, everything works.

I installed the drivers seat, and the front wont go down. if i reverse polarity at the motor it will. make a long story short, i switched the switches, and it is not the switches, there is something wrong with the PC board that is for memory. which i dont have.

I want to get rid of the memory board, and go directly to the motor from the switch. each switch is four way, and has five wires. i figure one wire is permanently negative, and the other four are positive, two to each motor. as polarity reverses, so does the motor.

now, if i set up a harness with one negative (fused i assume), and 16 wires off the positive, how do i wire it to the motor? i cant figure out how the polarity changes when the switch is hit. what am i missing?

i would like to keep the factory 4way switches for simplicty.

thanks

i

Magown

Tom R., I hate to hear that you are having more troubles related to your S2. I've got set of crap seats at my storage building that I can look at tomorrow. They are non memory so i can see how everything is hooked up and relay it back to you.

Tom R.

Shameless bump.

Thanks steve. i think it is in the circuit board. if i cared about the memory function i would trace the problem in the board (have it traced) instead i think it is easier to go around the board for the one tricky switch (the front one). i am very happy with the seats. i want to bypass the circuit board, hook the power directly through the switch to the seat.

if this is my biggest problem in life i am doing A-OK

IceShark

Tom, I have never been inside the power seats to see how they work but your thoughts on how that 4 way switch works has to be wrong. There must be something else in the bad circuit board which acomplishes the polarity reversal to the motors.

The the 2 motors that switch controls should only only have two electrical connectors each. By reversing the polarity to the two motor leads makes the motor go forward or reverse. If the switch only has 5 terminals to control those two motors there is no way on earth you can reverse the polarity via the switch alone - there are not enough terminals hence switch functions.

Which means there is a relay(s) or other polarity switching mechanism involved somewhere. I'm sure it is related to that defective circuit board you want to eliminate. So, I think you need to fix that circuit board and lord knows where you would get a wiring diagram for that. Maybe you can inspect it and see if there is an obvious burn, resolder the joints, test each component, or see if you can find a replacement. The board is working OK for the other switches so that should help you in tracing the problem.

Otherwise you are going to have to cook up a brand new relay scheme to get polarity to reverse with the stock switch.

Magown

I just looked at the seats. They are out of a 944 NA and have 2 2-way switches. Each switch has 4 wires. 1 hot, 1 ground, and 2 that go to the motor. The polarity change is accomplished in the switch. No relays. I would ***-u-me that the 4-way switch would be the same except it would have 6 wires - 1 hot, 1 ground an 2 pairs for 2 diff motors. But you say you have 5 wires on each so that doesn't help.

I had no idea that those suckers originally had memory, I just called a buddy of mine and he confirmed that his former 1991 S4 had memory seats and a 3 button control on the door panel.

I'm glad it's not the motor but it sounds like you need to do a little probing with a test light to see what each wire is doing.

Tom R.

Just came back from the radio shack next to my office with DPSP switches, and a schematic i made to override the board for the one bad switch.

then i got a call from my neighbor the electrical genius (mr mri music), and he told me to use the original switch and build a relay circuit. after a few minutes he asked if i had a clicking when i hit the switch. when i told him yes he told me i am an idiot!

since i am getting the clicking the board is ok, and it is a bad relay. i will get the seat to him tomorrow (not that easy since the car doesnt have a drivers seat. probably drop the top in the firebird, and dump the seat in upside down), and find the bad relay.

See, I knew it wasn't too bad.

Dan thanks for the relay info, kind of cleared of what my neighbor told me. im learning electronics 101 here.

Steve, thanks for looking. the other 20 or so wires in the harness are for the memory. scary thinking about an electrical gremlin in the memory, and thats just the seat!