[Slipangle]

So I'm trying to get a pair of seats out of a 2003 town car, I've removed the passenger seat and 3 out of 4 bolts on the driver seat without moving the seat. The seat is moved rearward and getting the rear bolts is the problem, I actually managed to get the outer rear bolt from the side, but the remaining bolt is the big 18 mm head that is larger for the seat belt anchor. I can't get to it without finding a way to get the seat motors to work.

I'm hoping I can get some insight into how these seats operate and what I need to connect. Ordinarily I could bring a portable jump start pack and connect to the vehicle battery terminals and operate the seat, but in this particular vehicle the harness going into the dashboard has been cut to remove the dashboard, and therefore the power from the fuse panel to the seats is not conected.

I've got the side carpet pulled up, so if I knew what wires by color to connect to + and - I think I'd be all set, but I don't know which ones that is and whether I need to connect more than just 2 wires - is there a + and - for the motor then 1 or more other wire I need to connect for relays, or what do I need to do?

(Yep I tried to guess my way through this unsuccessfully and the harness under the carpet next to the seat is now cut.)

 

[Slipangle]

Let's see if anyone can confirm I'm interpreting electrical diagrams I found correctly...

It looks to me as if one of these diagrams is saying the forward/rearward functions are 5 and 6 and the relevant motor connects on one side to a red and light green wire for one direction or yellow and light green for the other direction where it goes to the seat. Coming from the switch these are a red and white wire and yellow and white.

The other side of the motor looks as though it connects to a light green and black wire and a variable resistor that goes to an orange and red wire on one side and an orange and white wire on the other, I'm guessing these orange wires must be for the memory to read the position?

 

[Slipangle]

Usually the two biggest, fattest wires will be your power and ground.
Try to power those directly at the plug going into the seat. You will need to find this out anyways, to make them work for your application.

I'd normally agree, and I think that probably applies when the controls are on the side of the seat, but in this case the controls are on the door panel so I've got 3 motors each with 3 wires each plus 2 wires to sense where they are positioned for the seat memory... So I've basically got 15 wires for seat movement plus side airbag deployment wires in the bundle going under the seat - my son was with me and suggested just tie everything together and maybe it'll work - the one outcome I need to avoid is deploying the airbag and ripping the Cartier leather seat cover at which point my $25 bargain seats become expensive to repair if I can find the parts.

I thought about going with a set of black leather seats in another town car in the same salvage yard - but it also has the dashboard wiring cut LOL....

I made another trip after picking up the kids from school and got there with about 45 minutes, and I didn't have any luck getting anything to happen based on the guesses I was able to muster from my first glance at the wiring diagram. I feel like my first impression - that the diagrams are more complicated than straightforward - might be correct.

Maybe it's saying function 5 and 6 are seat forward and rearward and the switch goes to the red/white wire and the yellow/white wire and the direction is just depending on which side is positive and which is negative...

 

[Slipangle]

Okay I got out the passenger seat I did bring home. I think the red and white wire and the yellow and white wire are the keys as I saw those colors on wires going to the middle motor. There are 3 motors visible from the bottom of the seat, those wires go to a 6 pin connector. There are other functions (seat recline forward and back, lumbar operated by a switch on the seat) I don't need to figure out right now going to 2 other connectors. The connector pins may be visible from the rear if I can't get the wires to go from where I have them out from the carpet by the door.

I was able to get the seat moving forward and rearward by powering the 2 upper pins. (3 rows of 2, top bottom and middle. Each row of 2 pins goes to a different motor.)

Also since I had a multimeter I found out I misunderstood my portable jump start battery and I may have not been powering my test leads at the salvage yard.

So tomorrow morning I will try to power the red/white and yellow/white wires and I will bring my multimeter this time to confirm I'm actually getting voltage.

I'll also try to grab harness sections with the associated plugs for the door switches and the seats.

I've got a propane heater in my garage and I believe it tends to be good at creating humidity, so hopefully I'm not going to have any static discharge problems. But maybe I'll see if I can find dummy modules and take off the seat cover some time before I start my project, and not have the seats around when I'm welding on the car.

 

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Alright this is driving me nuts! I didn't have any success trying to get to wires where they come to the doorsill, these are the same wires just pulled out behind the seat. So I'm going directly into the seat at this point. At one point I was able to hear a small click like a relay when I had a few of the red with stripe wires bundled together and I was experimenting with yellow wires.

After I got all this pulled back I thought I'd try connecting the heavier red and black wires to my power supply positive and negative, then try the power lumbar switch since that is on the seat instead of the door panel. That actually worked.

At that point I started thinking maybe keeping the big red and black wires connected and finding the right relay would be my solution. But I just didn't find anything that worked before I gave up because it's really cold and windy today.

I'm open to any suggestions... I'm going to stare at wiring diagrams and see if I can reach out to anybody I knew from Lear for ideas.

 

[Slipangle]

Posting this link for at least my own reference since this seems to describe something that sounds like what I might be dealing with

Power seat wiring

Need wiring diagrams and/or advice on how to make 1998 Mark 8 power seats work using only the functions available from the switches on the seat side. Seat position memory, mirror position, etc. are not needed as the seats are going into a street rod. Currently the seats are on the workbench...

lincolnsofdistinction.org

 

[Slipangle]

I'm shooting in the dark myself. The lumbar function is the only one I've had work and that's because the switch is on the seat. I think the diagrams above are probably for a variant without memory seats. I'm having a bit of difficulty finding a trustworthy online source for wiring diagrams, the source I'm finding looks pretty shady.

 

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Found these, this might be a little more helpful. I'm thinking maybe this is telling me I'm on the right track to have the positive to red and negative to black, and the two horizontal motor +/- leads might need to connect to positive and negative and will make the thing run one direction or the other, if it goes back I just flip positive and negative... Just my next guess...

 

[Slipangle]

So anything along the lines of above guesswork didn't work out. I did get the seat out. What it took was pushing the seat back to get more access in front, I was able to find the bundle of wires going directly to the motors and I found red/white and yellow/white and powered the motor directly.