dakota seat swap question

11534 Views 14 Replies 5 Participants Last post by mopar56, Oct 9, 2012

mopar56

Discussion Starter · Sep 27, 2012

does anyone know if the wireing exist in a 99 Dakota for power seats?, my son is removing the stock bucket seats and installing some power leather ones from a similar year Durango, seeing as the control switch is on the seat I think it will just require a twelve volt power supply anyway, but it would be nice to use factory wireing, we had the seats out of the truck once already and didnt see any wires but maybe they are hidden under the carpet? thanks

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dana44

· #2 · Sep 27, 2012

I seem to remember there was wiring under the rug for power seats in my '95 (both of them) and they were both manual seats. Pull the seat and lift the rug to find out if it is there or not.

From there it would be a fuse to install.

mopar56

Discussion Starter · #3 · Sep 27, 2012

thanks I will, this is another weekend project for my sons daily driver he is picking up the seats tomorrow then will go back to repairing his 80 you were helping us with

valiant67

· #4 · Sep 27, 2012

I grabbed Durango seats back during cash for clunkers. I had a regular cab 1999 Dakota R/T at the time and there was no wiring for the power seats. I had to go back to a cash for clunkers Durango and get the wiring connectors to add the power seat circuit to my fuse block. Not only was the wiring missing (even at the fuse block), but the rear brackets on the Durango seat rails were different than those on my Dakota so I had to drill out the rivets and swap the rear pieces of the seat mounts to the Durango seats.

Since that Dakota was totaled, I have a second set of Durango seats to go into my new Dakota R/T. It's an extended cab and I can see the fuse holder is blank where the power seat fuse should be so I grabbed the part from the Durango fuse box again. The extended cab seat brackets are different than the regular cab but i haven't verified if they are the same or different than the Durango ones.
yet
Both these Dakotas were pretty well loaded, but not fully loaded, R/Ts. I suspect the wiring is never there if the factory didn't install power seats as the circuit isn't used for anything else on the Dakota.

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KOG

· #5 · Sep 27, 2012

Or you can go straight to the battery, install a 30 amp in line breaker and use 10 gauge wire.

mopar56

Discussion Starter · #6 · Sep 27, 2012

thanks again guys, I suspect my sons will be much like valiant67 as ours is faily loaded, remote locks, windows, etc, I will check the fuse box for the wireing but I think if its not there then we will just go direct to the battery, I will however get my son to get the ends of the wireing to the seat connectors to simplify things however I suspect there will be more than wire going into that harness if so do you know which one(s) to use and will the seat be grounded to the frame or do I need to run that to?, also my sons 99 is a extra cab, the guys at the auto wrecker said the seats are a direct bolt in?

TWX

· #7 · Sep 27, 2012

Please use an inline fuse if you go right to the battery- much safer that way.

KOG

· #8 · Sep 27, 2012

That's why you use an inline breaker. Stock seats use a breaker, not a fuse. Ground must come through the wiring connector on the seat, not the seat frame. You can ground the wire to the floor pan.

mopar56

Discussion Starter · #9 · Sep 27, 2012

yeah that was my intention, I have a marine shop, we have some excellent quality ato style inline fuse holders rated to 30amp what do you think they draw at max, maybe 20amp?

whoops I missed Kogs reply, why would they use a circuit breaker? instaed of a fuse I wasnt clear on that?

KOG

· #10 · Sep 27, 2012

If you stall the seat against the end of its track you can blow a fuse in normal operation. The breaker will reset after a time delay and continue to work. It's why headlights use breakers instead of fuses as well.

mopar56

Discussion Starter · #11 · Sep 27, 2012

thanks that makes sence

mopar56

Discussion Starter · #12 · Sep 28, 2012

ok we have the seats, my son picked up today, they look awesom except as valient67 mentioned in an earlier post the rear seat brackets or different, I have an idea how to get by this roadblock but I was wondering what you did, you mentioned drilling the rivots out, I thought of that but those are some sirus rivots what did you put them back on with? you cant really bolt them because the thickness of the bolt head would be in the way. Question 2...as an added bonus these seats are heated and they have a seperate 4 wire connector to them, I know it wont be as easy as wireing them to a switch, they must go to a timer and/or relay as well but we didnt get that stuff where ever it was in the wreck, do you think it can be done or should we just leave them un-hooked?

valiant67

· #13 · Sep 28, 2012

Mine were unheated so I didn't have that issue and didn't research it. All I know is the heater switches were on the console.

I used a grinder to grind the rivets off and did bolt them back on. Since I was installing in a regular cab, the driver's seat never moved but an inch or so once installed so the bolt heads weren't an issue for me.

I don't know if there's a circuit breaker in addition but the power seat circuit on the stock factory power seat setup is fused.

mopar56

Discussion Starter · #14 · Sep 30, 2012

well another small roadblock, think we have the mounting/heated seat wireing issue sorted, but before we installed them we tested all the functions and found one electic motor not working but cant figure hoe to remove it from the seat frame it seems there is a drive pin that holds it but no access to drive it out as it woul hit the seat rail, any one ever removed one, I am pretty sure the auto wreck will replace it for us if I can get it out, thanks

mopar56

Discussion Starter · #15 · Oct 9, 2012

so for anyone following this thread, we went back to the auto wrecker and they supplied us with another seat n/c, where the motors worked but the seat frame was bent, what we did was grind off the top of the rivot heads at the seat rails,(removed from seat ), then pryed off the motor/bracket assemblys, we swapped over the motor/bracket assembly, re-installed it on the seat frame lining up the rest of the rivot still in the seat rail with the origanal holes in the bracket then used a small wire feed welder to re-weld where the rivot heads were, worked like a charm! and we have lots of spare parts left over as well

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