TD5 D2 Seats - Electric Seat Controls 2

Installing the Seat Controls. 

The electric seat controls for a D2 Discovery are mounted on each side of the Centre Console alongside the 'cubby box'. Their positioning has always seemed a bit 'awkward' to me given the proximity of the nearby seat- belt socket and stalk.

They have a raised lower edge on the face-plate which helps protect the buttons from the seat belt stalks and prevents unintentional operation. There is no 'memory' function to their adjustment. As I mentioned earlier, the actual components of the switches are from the BMW parts bin where they all seem to have been mounted onto their relevant seat bases. Imagine that!, components from a 90's era M5 built into the Discovery!

In an earlier blog, I wrote about my decision to convert the existing 'manual' console in Hx to an 'electric' one by marking and cutting out the mounting aperture for the seat controls.

I started on this task a few months ago, but stalled after a few hours!. The photo below shows the results of that earlier endeavour..

I had marked out the position for the switch mounting-plate using a paper template and then a small cutting wheel was mounted on a Dremmel type tool to cut along the marked out lines. Progress was swift and easily controlled.

So, today when I returned to the task all I needed to do was trim the cuts with a craft knife to remove the panel..

This gave me my first glimpse inside the console and I was able to determine how the wiring loom would route itself from here to go underneath the nearby seat.

I reckon it will be possible to install all the wiring without removing the centre console. However, it may be necessary to loosen the two mounting screws that are in the base of the 'cubby box' just to get some extra wiggle room.

At the moment, the rear section of the centre console has been removed for some modifications and this greatly opened up the available space to work with. With the seat removed there should be ample access to route the cabling.

After cleaning up the cut edges, I offered up the seat control mount plate to the console. As expected, there where issues of clearance..

After much staring and planning, I marked out the areas that needed some more attention and then filed them away with craft files and also a full-sized bastard file..

I placed some white kitchen towel inside the console to help collect all the swarf and filings, but also to provide some visual contrast to highlight the work being done..

I found it easy to control the amount of material being removed and kept checking the fit of the mounting plate after every few strokes. I was careful to look at all the contact points and not just the ones being worked on. In the end, the mounting panel is a tight precise fit onto the centre console..

That set me up to do the same to the right hand electric seat controls. Throughout the process, I was very weary of the brittleness of the mounting lugs and keen not to break any more! When the mounting plate 'popped' into place I decided to leave it there for now and retrieve it when I remove the electric window switch panel as that will allow direct access to the rear of the mounting panel.

Right Hand Electric Seat Control.

Again I used the paper template as before and positioned it mainly by line of sight before taping it down and marking the contact points with a sharp pointed file.

The dots were then joined up with a pencil. At this stage I thought of adjusting the measurements slightly based on the experience with the left hand side, but decided to go with it and trim back the aperture to fit the mounting plate..

I used the same cutting wheel on the Dremmel tool as before, paying attention to the direction of the spinning cut. This seemed to make a difference as the wheel really flowed through the plastic. After a quick clean up, I started to fit the mounting plate to its new aperture. Again I used the craft files and the big Bastard file and soon had the mounting plate fitting snugly in there.

Also visible in the above photo is the inner wall of the Cubby-box and the wiring loom connectors for the electric windows.

I elected not to tap this side home all the way though as I need to sort out the method for attaching the switch box to the back of the mount-plate via those two screw holes that BMW applications use. I already sourced some countersunk bolt screws, but a quick dry run shows it won't be as easy as I hoped. 

Mounting the Switch Pack.

Wrote in the earlier blog about the flimsy attachments for the switch-pack to the rear of the switch mounting plate. Quite a few of these attachment 'lugs' are missing or ineffective on both mounting plates with the result that the mounted switch-packs are not secure and can shift around a bit when mounted to the rear of the mount plates.

This results in the physical operation of the switches feeling loose and insecure, I had already discussed and planned the remedy for this. 

Earlier research found that the switch-packs are actual BMW components and that they use two small screw bolts for their attachment on many 90's era BMW models. As the holes for the screw bolts are present on the switch pack, I opted to modify the Land Rover components to use the same mounting..

Some 10mm M4 hex-head countersunk machine screws were bought and the first task was to use one of them to 'cut' a thread into the blank switch-pack mountings..

I used some moderate hand force to initiate the cutting of the thread. The recess is only plastic and once the initial resistance was overcome, the screw-bolt was able to easily cut the rest of the internal thread. I worked slowly going a half-turn at a time and was surprised at the amount of heat the friction of the thread cutting generated..

A close up view of the newly cut internal thread added to one of the two switch pack locating recesses.

Once the thread cutting was finished, attention turned to drilling and countersinking the holes into the front of the mounting plates..

I made careful measurements and re-checked everything as I knew I only had one chance to get it right. I started with a tiny pilot hole drilled using the Dremmel then used a full- sized countersunk bit to recess the machine screw/bolt head. The mount plate is plastic so it offers little resistance and it should be possible to do this by hand without the overkill of a full sized power drill!.. 

Happy with the fitting. The switch-pack is now firmly mounted to the back of the mount-plate. Once the other side is finished, I will spray the front of the mount plates black just to tone-down the heads of the screw-bolts..

Anyone for Panel Lights..?

Hmm...  wonder if its possible to install some tiny LED panel lights onto those hollow stalks..??.. The idea being to illuminate the switch graphics from behind..?

After working out how to power up some LED panel lights, the biggest problem would be that the original buttons are not translucent beneath the button graphics and so they would not allow any light to pass through.

My earlier theory about them being from the BMW parts bin and that perhaps lighting was fitted to BMW installs has proved fruitless so far. 

Some modification to the button structure would be needed and perhaps the real answer here is to get busy with a 3d printer and make some buttons from scratch!

Installing the Loom.

Having prepared the 'manual' centre console on Hx by cutting out the two seat control mountings, the next job was to fit the seat control looms into the console and route them down under each seat.  

Initially, I did not know how to go about doing this or whether it was possible to do it with the centre console still in place.

Looking online for images soon threw up the following photo of a stripped out interior and it revealed the path taken by the seating loom..

Seats, carpets, centre console and the rear foot-well heating ducts have all been removed. The rear of the seat control switch packs can clearly be seen hanging loose towards the rear seats, but that is not their fitted position.

Have to state that there is no need to strip out the interior to this extent to fit the loom!! 

Initially, I assumed the loom would be routed out of the rear of the console and under the carpets. Seeing the above image showed how the loom takes a much more 'direct' route and emerges from the console directly below the fitted switch location where it then follows the existing factory fitted loom along the recessed 'channel' in the floorpan directly below the joint of the front and rear carpets to emerge above the carpet and into the floorpan below the seat location.

The looms were bought second-hand and I initially overlooked the fact that their cabling had the twists and turns from being fitted moulded into its shape. Think of it like a physical memory. When fitting the loom, the existing twists and turns made sense and even guided the fitting and routing of the loom!

Using the above image as a reference, I poked and prodded around the insides of Hx to get a good idea of where to lay the loom and to see if it was possible to do it without removing the centre console. Pleased to say that it is! Removing the seat will provide all the access that is required and as swapping the seats is the whole intention here, its a win win situation! At this time, I had also removed the rear lower console earlier on to modify the ashtray fitting. I would recommend doing this as well. 

Began fitting the loom by feeding the grey connector into the aperture cut into the side of the centre console and guided it down vertically inside the console and around the fitted internal heating ducts. There is enough space to get fingers in there and 'feel' for the layout in there. The plastic side of the console has a fair bit of flex in it and soon enough the grey connector will emerge below the console side. There is a notch cut into the metal body of the transmission tunnel that guides the loom vertically and it can be found easily.

As I said earlier, the twists and turns present in the second hand loom suddenly make sense in helping to guide the fitting of the loom.

With the seat removed it is easy to lift back the rear carpet joint just enough to reveal the trough and the metal 'hairclip' tie. The loom can be tied down by the clip along with the existing factory fitted loom that will be there as well. The carpet can then be replaced and that's basically all that's needed.

Close up of the 'hairclip'  wrapped around the seat loom.
 

Final image of the fitted seat looms (minus the rear console lower trim and the seat switches). The carpet was replaced and cleaned. The grey connector is the newly fitted seat control loom, the brown connector will supply power to the seat and the heated seat pads while the yellow connector is the standard Pre-Tensioner for the seat belt stalk.