Removing Seats
01-20-2007, 10:20 AM
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Removing Seats
I want to gut the rear seats to lose weight (there is no leg room anyway) and at the same time change out the fronts for some Pole Positions. Any "How to's?" I'm a little concerned about the air bag wiring that surely is tied into the fronts? Gotta put this thing on a diet in preparation for that MTM blower!
01-20-2007, 10:32 AM
#2
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The rear side air bags can fairly easily be disabled.
Your dealer is supposed to do it for you one time without charge. I will try to dig out the directions for you for the fronts.
01-20-2007, 11:00 AM
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Re: The rear side air bags they can fairly easily be disabled.
Thanks! I don't want to blow myself up with an exploding airbag, or is it as simple as jsut disconnecting the battery?
01-20-2007, 11:45 AM
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Yes you better disconnect the main battery, that's the safe thing to do when you work on a car...
Now I don't want to mislead you on the seat/air bag thing but on my car (B6 A4) with no rear air bags I had to work with a friend that does a lot of electronics in VWs and Audis to "bypass" the system.
I installed a Sparco Pro 2000 race seat in my car. Because of this, not only did I have to "fool" the main air bag system which is connected to the seat and into the floor board of the car (via the yellow air bag connector/harness), I also had to defeat the side air bag circuitry. The same thing will have to be done on the right front or passenger seat. What had to be done was to use and secure a resistance to a yellow male air bag adapter to "fool the system into thinking all was normal. The same thing had to be done with the side air bag although the male adapter is black and rectangular. I bought these from Audi.
Of course this will not be required if your replacement seats have the main air bag harness (yellow plug) and if they are equipped with a side air bag that corresponds to the unit.
Now as for the back, well believe or not the rear safety belts are also connected to the air bag system. I guess that's done for the reel inertia pyrotechnics. In any case on my car the one connection to the rear seat is on the right side. You should see the harness (yellow air bag plug IIRC) when you remove the bottom seat cushion. Again a resistance was used to fool the system. BTW, the bottom seat cushion is very light in weight and it is only pressure clipped in and easy to remove by just pulling up swiftly.
If by reducing weight you mean only taking out the bottom seat cushion forget about it. IIRC it weighs maybe 5 lbs maybe a bit more. The heavy stuff is the folding backs of the rear seat with all its hardware. In total the whole rear seat weighs 75 lbs. A front seat in my car about 55 lbs but I'm sure yours are a lot heavier. I figure with my race seat in and the back and right front seat out I saved about 160 lbs.
I installed a Sparco Pro 2000 race seat in my car. Because of this, not only did I have to "fool" the main air bag system which is connected to the seat and into the floor board of the car (via the yellow air bag connector/harness), I also had to defeat the side air bag circuitry. The same thing will have to be done on the right front or passenger seat. What had to be done was to use and secure a resistance to a yellow male air bag adapter to "fool the system into thinking all was normal. The same thing had to be done with the side air bag although the male adapter is black and rectangular. I bought these from Audi.
Of course this will not be required if your replacement seats have the main air bag harness (yellow plug) and if they are equipped with a side air bag that corresponds to the unit.
Now as for the back, well believe or not the rear safety belts are also connected to the air bag system. I guess that's done for the reel inertia pyrotechnics. In any case on my car the one connection to the rear seat is on the right side. You should see the harness (yellow air bag plug IIRC) when you remove the bottom seat cushion. Again a resistance was used to fool the system. BTW, the bottom seat cushion is very light in weight and it is only pressure clipped in and easy to remove by just pulling up swiftly.
If by reducing weight you mean only taking out the bottom seat cushion forget about it. IIRC it weighs maybe 5 lbs maybe a bit more. The heavy stuff is the folding backs of the rear seat with all its hardware. In total the whole rear seat weighs 75 lbs. A front seat in my car about 55 lbs but I'm sure yours are a lot heavier. I figure with my race seat in and the back and right front seat out I saved about 160 lbs.
01-20-2007, 03:34 PM
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Exploding Seat Belt Tensioners...WTF?
Good info. Thanks. Sounds like I may be better off letting a qualified race shop do the conversion, then I can take it to my upholstry guys to finish the carpet work. Man, these new cars are complicated, exploding seat belt tensioners and all. I don't want to see an air bag warning light on the dash when I'm done.
01-20-2007, 03:36 PM
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Re: I'd love to buy your fronts if you would consider parting with them.
Based on what I'm hearing, this is going to take a while, but I will let you know should I decide to sell the parts.
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01-20-2007, 03:56 PM
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I didn't want to to scare you but both the air bag and seat belt pre tensionner use small charges...
Of explosives to make things happen.
If you don't know what you are doing better let someone one that's done this or knows about this system work on it. After all is done you do want the systems to work properly just in case.
If you don't know what you are doing better let someone one that's done this or knows about this system work on it. After all is done you do want the systems to work properly just in case.