Seat swap wiring

[connormoran6.7]

So I want to swap out my manual seats for power and i was just wondering if anyone knew what these wires are. Im guessing they are power and ground. But im not sure and i dont want to set of the air bags lol. The first picture is the yellow plug and 5 wires that come out of the floor. The second picture is the yellow connector on the powered seat and its 6 wires and a grey connector with 1 black wire. I want to confirm that these are the positive and negative wires. 3rd pic is the controls on the seat if that helps

 

[adurm]

I am pretty sure the yellow is for airbag. You don't want to mess with that unless you are 100%.

Never mind, pulled the captain obvious out on you. I need to read more better. Sorry don't know the answer.

 

[UpInSm0kE]

Give this thread a try a TON of information. Your wiring in the first picture is the bare minimum wiring (I have the same) there is no power for the seat in the plug in picture 1 for your powered seat. To get the powered function to work just wire in a 12v+ power wire into slot 1 of the yellow plug in your first picture, the rest of the wires in that plug are for the air bag and will plug right in and work (just match the solid red 14ga wire slot on the seat plug). I ran a temporary wire for mine from the battery to that plug to move the seat to where I need it for now. Deereguy on the forums is making me a custom harness for the Heated/Power that will be the permanent solution for me.

http://www.ramforum.com/f75/how_add_heated_ventelated_seats_heated_wheel_express_tradesman-96759/

I am actually in the process of swapping my tradesman seats to heated/power from a Big Horn. The Yellow is airbag and has the power for the seat from the PDC. The Grey one is for the heated/cooled and memory wiring for the seat if so equipped. Your Grey plug under the seat in picture 2 will not plug into anything

 

[SitKneelBend]

So if I have an Express is the plug already under the seat ready and powered?

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[Ricks Ram]

So if I have an Express is the plug already under the seat ready and powered?

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No unfortunately the 13 and up Express Quad and Crew Cab do not have the proper wiring for power seats. All regular cab Express trucks have the same wiring has the R/T. Most likely because Ram sells so few of them they don't bother making different harnesses for the Regular Cab trucks.

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[Ricks Ram]

But as stated you can just run 12 volt power to the solid red wire in the yellow seat plug and a ground to the solid black wire in the yellow seat plug and the power functions on the seat will work great. Or as mentioned you can buy a harness from Deer Guy at M2mods and actually just wire the seat into your PDC.

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[SitKneelBend]

No unfortunately the 13 and up Express Quad and Crew Cab do not have the proper wiring for power seats. All regular cab Express trucks have the same wiring has the R/T. Most likely because Ram sells so few of them they don't bother making different harnesses for the Regular Cab trucks.

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Thanks! Do you know if it's just a simple two wire connection? 12v from the battery and ground?

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[SitKneelBend]

OK disregard my last! Last question if you know the answer, will my manual cloth seat cover fit a power seat?

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[Ricks Ram]

OK disregard my last! Last question if you know the answer, will my manual cloth seat cover fit a power seat?

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I am pretty sure as long as it's a bighorn style seat and not the Highback Laramie/Sport style seat the covers should be interchangeable. They appear to be the same design just different material. I understand what you're trying to do. By changing seat covers you can install a power driver"s seat and it will blend into your truck. I think it would look good. It is not hard to change them. I re covered my Laramie seats and they came out great. You'll need to buy some hog rings and hog ring pliers to install them.

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[SitKneelBend]

I am pretty sure as long as it's a bighorn style seat and not the Highback Laramie/Sport style seat the covers should be interchangeable. They appear to be the same design just different material. I understand what you're trying to do. By changing seat covers you can install a power driver"s seat and it will blend into your truck. I think it would look good. It is not hard to change them. I re covered my Laramie seats and they came out great. You'll need to buy some hog rings and hog ring pliers to install them.

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Thanks brother! That's exactly what I'm up to!

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[chrisbh17]

Yeah, it looks like the power vs manual seat thing shouldn't matter. The actual controls for both are part of the plastic panel on the side of the seats and the seat covers tuck in above that area so the seat control type shouldn't affect the seat cover.....it would have been dumb for FCA to do it any other way, why have all these different sets of covers based on power vs manual, etc.

Im looking at doing the exact same thing.....re-covering my cloth seats with a Katzkin kit or replacing them altogether with factory leather seats. The price on decent used factory leather seats is getting out of hand, though, and with the kit at least I can get exactly what I want (pattern, color, etc).

 

[SitKneelBend]

Yeah, it looks like the power vs manual seat thing shouldn't matter. The actual controls for both are part of the plastic panel on the side of the seats and the seat covers tuck in above that area so the seat control type shouldn't affect the seat cover.....it would have been dumb for FCA to do it any other way, why have all these different sets of covers based on power vs manual, etc.

Im looking at doing the exact same thing.....re-covering my cloth seats with a Katzkin kit or replacing them altogether with factory leather seats. The price on decent used factory leather seats is getting out of hand, though, and with the kit at least I can get exactly what I want (pattern, color, etc).

Excellent points.

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[Ricks Ram]

That's actually exactly what I ended up doing. I found a great deal on some Laramie seats. Of course this is before they became so popular and most people weren't trying to install them in other trucks. In any case I ended up deciding I didn't want to go with seats it said Laramie all over them in my Express so I reupholstered them. I ended up having custom seat covers made by leatherseats.com and doing it myself. The covers fit perfectly and they came out great. It wasn't nearly as hard as I thought it would be to recover the seats. This is a picture of one of the seats after I finished, and no my wife is not happy that I decided to do it in the house LOL.

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[chrisbh17]

Nice! It looks like now, though, you can't get the RAM logo unless you buy Katzkin through Mopar. Im OK with that.

Im looking at a similar setup, probably in Katzkin (leatherseats.com seems much more expensive....Im not sure if the quality is that much better, though)

The "canned" setups are fairly inexpensive, relatively speaking ($500-ish). But Ive built custom setups up to $1K....two tone, perforated centers, etc.

As far as the actual labor, way back when I re-upholstered a set of seats in a 1967 Mustang. Thats when EVERY fastening point was a hog ring. Nowadays it looks a lot simpler with the plastic slot clips holding the bulk of the cover on.

 

[SitKneelBend]

Hey @Ricks Ram , did you notice any difference in the OEM foam used for the power seat over your manual seat?

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[Ricks Ram]

Hey @Ricks Ram , did you notice any difference in the OEM foam used for the power seat over your manual seat?

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I never took the seat covers off my original manual seats. I only removed the seat covers off the Laramie seats because I was replacing them. The Laramie seat foam is completely different then the Big Horn or Express because they are the high back buckets. I actually sold my stock seats to a friend of mine and he installed them in his older Ram. I would feel very confident though that standard seats are the same. I would think the only difference between the Tradesman/Express seats and the Big Horn seats is the actual seat cover itself. The Big Horn seat seems to be the same pattern it's just a nicer material.

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[SitKneelBend]

I never took the seat covers off my original manual seats. I only removed the seat covers off the Laramie seats because I was replacing them. The Laramie seat foam is completely different then the Big Horn or Express because they are the high back buckets. I actually sold my stock seats to a friend of mine and he installed them in his older Ram. I would feel very confident though that standard seats are the same. I would think the only difference between the Tradesman/Express seats and the Big Horn seats is the actual seat cover itself. The Big Horn seat seems to be the same pattern it's just a nicer material.

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Thanks for the reassurance. I'm sourcing a driver seat now. I'll definitely get a hold of Deereguy

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[Ricks Ram]

Nice! It looks like now, though, you can't get the RAM logo unless you buy Katzkin through Mopar. Im OK with that.

Im looking at a similar setup, probably in Katzkin (leatherseats.com seems much more expensive....Im not sure if the quality is that much better, though)

The "canned" setups are fairly inexpensive, relatively speaking ($500-ish). But Ive built custom setups up to $1K....two tone, perforated centers, etc.

As far as the actual labor, way back when I re-upholstered a set of seats in a 1967 Mustang. Thats when EVERY fastening point was a hog ring. Nowadays it looks a lot simpler with the plastic slot clips holding the bulk of the cover on.

There were still a lot of hog rings involved but a lot of it was held in by velcro strips as well. I bought a $30 garment steamer from Walmart and it worked perfect during the install. It was actually kind of fun once I got the hang of it. I decided to do it myself because the upholstery shops around here we're trying to charge me a fortune to install them acting like it was a huge job when in actuality it wasn't. I had no idea you could not get the RAM logo anymore on the leatherseats.com seats. I guess I got lucky. When I did mine a few years ago Katskins were extremely expensive, especially if you started adding custom colors and stitching. I was able to get them for a better price at leatherseats.com but maybe Katskin has lowered their prices a little and leatherseats.com has raised there's? I have seen Katskin covers in other trucks and it looks like their quality is just as good as the leatherseatscom covers I put in my truck. I would think it would be a matter of just finding the ones you like best that you can get the best price on. It would kind of suck though if you couldn't get the Ram logo on the leatherseats.com covers anymore. I kind of like that touch.

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[Ricks Ram]

Thanks for the reassurance. I'm sourcing a driver seat now. I'll definitely get a hold of Deereguy

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O0/RT actually had a set of front seats for a Big Horn. Its s a driver side power seat manual side passenger seat and they are both heated. He changed them out for Laramie seats and I know he posted he was selling them. If you install the seats and later on down the road you decide you want them heated you can just add the proper wiring and sales codes and it be good to go. I'm not sure if he still has them but the last post I saw he still did. I think they were both in Immaculate shape. I'm not sure where he lives or where you live but you might want to shoot him a PM. and see if they're still available. You might be able to work something out. It would save you the headaches of trying to find a seat from a wrecking yard and not knowing what condition it's in before they ship it to you.

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[SitKneelBend]

O0/RT actually had a set of front seats for a Big Horn. Its s a driver side power seat manual side passenger seat and they are both heated. He changed them out for Laramie seats and I know he posted he was selling them. If you install the seats and later on down the road you decide you want them heated you can just add the proper wiring and sales codes and it be good to go. I'm not sure if he still has them but the last post I saw he still did. I think they were both in Immaculate shape. I'm not sure where he lives or where you live but you might want to shoot him a PM. and see if they're still available. You might be able to work something out. It would save you the headaches of trying to find a seat from a wrecking yard and not knowing what condition it's in before they ship it to you.

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Good looking out. I'll see if it's in my budget range. Right now I'm working with about $300 from the Trump tax Cuts + my annual raise so this MOD will feel like its free!

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