I posted a couple shots in the weekend thread. Some people seemed interested in how this worked, I'm not great at posting "how-to's" since I'm usually on a time crunch and don't pause to take pictures. Also, ALL pictures are taken BEFORE I cleaned anything, again, time crunch, so please excuse the mess.
I also wanted to post a full thread so someone could link this to the compiled Seat Swap Thread.
A little background, ever since I got my Cruiser nearly 10 years ago the seats have been split and the leather hard. Previous (and original) owner had seatcovers over them and they sorta just went to hell under there. I was going to get a recover set, new foams, do that whole investment at some point. Then a few months ago my mother-in-law broke my passenger seat.
I've owned several VW's and Audi's and always loved the Recaros that came in the B6 and B7 chassis S4 and RS4 cars. It's very similar to the Recaro Sport Topline just with a non-integrated removable head rest, and the Recaro Style Topline. Thankfully lots and lots of these Audi's break down for good and get parted out for cheap. I scored this set locally for $100. They are power with heat and lumbar support. It's a very, very comfortable seat. They need a good cleaning, but nothing major. Eventually I'll probably recover them to match the interior better and some of my Audi friends locally have had their S4 seats done with great results.
So, the single most important thing is that this seat is WIDE, it just barely fits in there without rubbing against the B-pillar or door pocket, but you will need to flatten out the "hump" on the transmission tunnel. Most other seat installs note this as well. If you don't do this the seat will kick over almost an inch and a half into the door and be crooked and bad.
Here's how mine looked on the passenger side, it was the same on the driver side:
So, I used the brackets from Planted. I checked between theirs and Wedge, and the Planted one was wider and a bit longer than the Wedge units, plus they're local to me and offered free shipping.
Driver's Bracket
Passenger's Bracket
Because the Audi seat already had the seat belt anchor point, I cut off the little seat belt tab that came on the Planted bracket. If I knew I didn't need this I would have asked Planted if they could have not installed the anchor point tab. The great thing about the Audi seats is that the seat belts anchor in the same spot so the length is good and bolts right in. It's a T-40 bolt on the Audi side.
Ok, so I should mention the wiring for this, well I can't remember where I came across it, but there's a company in Germany called Kufatec and they manufacture retrofit wiring harnesses for ALL KINDS of European cars and their systems. I'll stop short of doing an ad for them here, but they're great, they use OEM clips and fully wrap their wires, its great, oh and they use Amazon checkout and ship incredibly fast. Ordered on a Monday and got here on Thursday FROM GERMANY!
Kufatec Seat Heating Harness
Kufatec Set Power Harness
I wired the seat power and heater controls to a small fusebox I put under the center console. I had an old power lead running to the cargo area for a subwoofer install that I've since taken out so I used that power cable which made things easier.
To control the seat heater I used the rolling switches from a B5.5 chassis VW Passat. VW/Audi guys know the Passat uses a lot of interchangeable parts with the similar chassis Audi so I knew the switches would work. I just had to modify the pigtails to the Kufatec harness points.
Then I put them in the holes for the coin slots in the center console, just had to do some slight Dremel work on one edge to get them in. They're not perfect yet, but I'll mess with it and get them just how I want them, but they work right now and just in time for winter.
I also wanted to post a full thread so someone could link this to the compiled Seat Swap Thread.
A little background, ever since I got my Cruiser nearly 10 years ago the seats have been split and the leather hard. Previous (and original) owner had seatcovers over them and they sorta just went to hell under there. I was going to get a recover set, new foams, do that whole investment at some point. Then a few months ago my mother-in-law broke my passenger seat.
I've owned several VW's and Audi's and always loved the Recaros that came in the B6 and B7 chassis S4 and RS4 cars. It's very similar to the Recaro Sport Topline just with a non-integrated removable head rest, and the Recaro Style Topline. Thankfully lots and lots of these Audi's break down for good and get parted out for cheap. I scored this set locally for $100. They are power with heat and lumbar support. It's a very, very comfortable seat. They need a good cleaning, but nothing major. Eventually I'll probably recover them to match the interior better and some of my Audi friends locally have had their S4 seats done with great results.
So, the single most important thing is that this seat is WIDE, it just barely fits in there without rubbing against the B-pillar or door pocket, but you will need to flatten out the "hump" on the transmission tunnel. Most other seat installs note this as well. If you don't do this the seat will kick over almost an inch and a half into the door and be crooked and bad.
Here's how mine looked on the passenger side, it was the same on the driver side:
So, I used the brackets from Planted. I checked between theirs and Wedge, and the Planted one was wider and a bit longer than the Wedge units, plus they're local to me and offered free shipping.
Driver's Bracket
Passenger's Bracket
Because the Audi seat already had the seat belt anchor point, I cut off the little seat belt tab that came on the Planted bracket. If I knew I didn't need this I would have asked Planted if they could have not installed the anchor point tab. The great thing about the Audi seats is that the seat belts anchor in the same spot so the length is good and bolts right in. It's a T-40 bolt on the Audi side.
Ok, so I should mention the wiring for this, well I can't remember where I came across it, but there's a company in Germany called Kufatec and they manufacture retrofit wiring harnesses for ALL KINDS of European cars and their systems. I'll stop short of doing an ad for them here, but they're great, they use OEM clips and fully wrap their wires, its great, oh and they use Amazon checkout and ship incredibly fast. Ordered on a Monday and got here on Thursday FROM GERMANY!
Kufatec Seat Heating Harness
Kufatec Set Power Harness
I wired the seat power and heater controls to a small fusebox I put under the center console. I had an old power lead running to the cargo area for a subwoofer install that I've since taken out so I used that power cable which made things easier.
To control the seat heater I used the rolling switches from a B5.5 chassis VW Passat. VW/Audi guys know the Passat uses a lot of interchangeable parts with the similar chassis Audi so I knew the switches would work. I just had to modify the pigtails to the Kufatec harness points.
Then I put them in the holes for the coin slots in the center console, just had to do some slight Dremel work on one edge to get them in. They're not perfect yet, but I'll mess with it and get them just how I want them, but they work right now and just in time for winter.
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