Heated seats project complete
 

On vacation this week, so decided to take care of my cold butt in the Disco. I've installed a few seat heat kits over the years in various things, this was BY FAR the easiest. The early non-powered Disco seats weigh nothing, and the covers come off ridiculously easy. Only three hog rings per seat to deal with, it's all just clips! I replace hog rings with good quality zip ties, they work great. Ran power from the cigarette lighter circuit, the seat heaters only draw 7a each on high. Though at some point I want to add a relay switched power line with a distribution box from the battery for various accessories like this. A project for another day, probably when I get around to wiring up the foglights I installed on the bumper six months ago... I mounted the switches where the stock switches go - the wiring fit through the holes in the baseplate, so I just had to drill holes in the cover plate. Nice and toasty now!

Of course, in the way of these trucks, this project created a couple more. My window switch mounting plate was shattered so I ordered a replacement. When I had the driver's seat out six months ago to reverse the mounting rails to get some much needed legroom, the seat diaphragm was still intact. Now, not so much, split down one side. Maybe I need to go on a diet... So I did the redneck Gorilla tape fix to put it back together for now, and ordered a new diaphragm from the UK. Even with 2-day shipping it was $25 cheaper than anyone in the US I could find online. Got to love that current exchange rate to the Pound! Will replace it when my Gorilla tape fails. Will be curious to see how long it lasts. That stuff is pretty darned tough. This time around I drilled a couple new holes so I could mount the seat further back and still have the adjuster lever in the front. Was able to get exactly enough legroom, but nobody with longer legs than me will be comfortable driving this truck. Baffles me that they built them the way they did - just no reason for such terrible legroom! Seat is much more comfortable now. Must have happened gradually enough that I didn't really notice, the seat didn't look much different.

what seat heater kit did you use? I am about to recover the bottoms of my front seats and will need new heating elements.

I bought this kit some years ago and never put it in the car it was supposed to go in. But they are pretty much all the same - looking at Amazon, you can get a pair of kits for ~$50 these days. I imagine they all come out of the same Chinese factory no matter where you buy them, as they all look about the same.

This looks identical to mine:

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B008D2LIRG...ing=UTF8&psc=1