MINI Cooper S seats

[CoconutPete]

Well, my continued dis-satisfaction with my current seats combined with my curiosity of the MINI seats from another thread combined with a wrecked MINI Cooper S with nice seats popping up at a junkyard near me, I took the plunge and picked these up.

I figured if nothing else, it would be a learning experience. Initial impressions are good, I took the frame off and just laid it down in the Z and with a little bit of enlargement in the rear holes, the frame should actually bolt right in ... fitment will be another chapter.

Wiring looks pretty good too, the seatbelt pre-tensioner looks d@mn near identical to the factory Z one.

This will probably not be a super quick project as summer has started and things are nuts, but I'll get there.IMG_7177.jpgIMG_7191.jpg

[cyberman]

Oh yes, keep us in the loop.

[CoconutPete]

OK, so today's update is that if you unbolt the bottom frame from the seats and go to work for less than 5 minutes with a round file, you can bolt the sliders etc. right into the Z. That's the good news.

The bad news is that as I expected, the seats sit "outboard" from where you really want them. It's tough to get an exact measurement, I kept ranging from 1.5 to 1.75". I think either one would be completely acceptable.

I yanked the seats back out and need to re-assemble them as a unit. The frames themselves make it pretty easy to "shift" the seats over. The lone obstacle is the seat belt receptacle.

Lots more wires here. Clearly there's a set for the airbag inside the seat, then there's the usual two-for-one for the pre-tensioner, one to serve as the "is your belt fastened" pair and one to fire the explosive charge. Then there's another small bracket bolted to the seat base which I honestly don't know what is, this is on the drivers seat.

Finally ... major bummer! The seat belt from the Z does not plug into the MINI seatbelt pre-tensioner. this means I need to retrofit the older unit from the Z back on once this whole thing is over. That's about the only thing I was bummed about.

[328 Power 04]

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I recently picked up this Mini Cooper S (only pic I have of the interior), these are the sports seats. Do you think these are the same, or which chassis was the source for yours?

[CoconutPete]

They do not look like yours. They came out of a 2008 which I think is called an R53.

[solimans]

R53 is 2002 through 2006

After that it was the r56

[KeysCoupe]

The seat dimensions I PM’ed you a few weeks ago are from my R53. The seats in your photo above are from a later model Mini.
-Donny

[CoconutPete]

The seat dimensions I PM’ed you a few weeks ago are from my R53. The seats in your photo above are from a later model Mini.
-Donny

Hehe. Well they still bolted in after about 10 minutes of elbow grease and a set of round files. The seat mounting hardware must not have changed between models.

The up/down mechanism will need to be modified in order to modify the seat. I had it bolted in and the seat will need to move 1.5 to 1.75 inches "inboard" in order to sit in the dead center of the steering wheel. I have a way in mind, but the up/down mechanism will hit it. Luckily there's a lot of "un-necessary" hardware in there.

Pics later. I have hope.

Full disclosure: Sent my buddy down in GA on a wild goosechase to go pull some pretty decent sports seats out of a wrecked roadster. I'm road tripping down to see him on the 25. so those may take priority when I get home, but I do intend on finishing these because I REALLY like these seats. They are comfortable and have HUGE bolsters to keep you from going side-to-side.

[CoconutPete]

As I mentioned earlier, the "up/down" adjustment hardware is what's going to suffer during the process of moving the seat 1.5" inboard from it's base.

This is what it looks like when you remove the handle and plastic trim.

Second pic is with a bunch of hardware removed. Creative souls could probably build a handle that would allow you t adjust it easily. I may do this later, but the thing is I will always want this seat adjusted down as low as it goes, so I'm going to opt for a small hole I'll drill in the plastic trim and cover w/ a standard plastic plug. When I want to adjust the height I can just use a torx bit.

Next I'll get to work on the brackets to move the seat. It's basically a set of 2 19"x3" steel plates with 6 holes drilled in them.

**by the way, any recommendations on leather repair stuff? There's a small tear down near the trim. I'd like to address it while I have it apart**


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[CoconutPete]

Cold rolled steel for the brackets will be here tomorrow.

Next challenge after that will be the passenger side occupancy sensor.

3 wires on the MINI passenger seat.

I have never actually looked closely at the plug in the Z3. I wonder if it's 3 wires also.

I wonder even more if the colors will match up .....

I wonder even more how the hell I'll figure out what's what if they don't!

[cyberman]

Occupancy sensor is 2-wire and there is a bypass unit available that will plug into the harness and trick the system into thinking there is someone sitting in the seat, which means the airbag(s) on the passenger side will always deploy in an accident. At least that's how it is/was on my 96. There was/is also a three-wire connector to pretensioner and you can bypass that too if you want with a 2.2 Ohm resister across two of the wires. I think the third wire goes to the buckle and seems to also get "stuck" in such a way that the system thinks the belt is latched. Going from memory here - if it's different, they'll be voices popping up.

[CoconutPete]

I’d like to use the sensor in the Mini seat. If the BMW one is 3 wires then there ought to be an easy way to do it. I just need to find out the purpose for each wire.

Seat belt receptacles from the Z will be re-used. They will relatively easily fit on the Mini seats. Easiest option since the BMW seat belts will not fit into the receptacles from the Mini.

[cyberman]

I’d like to use the sensor in the Mini seat. If the BMW one is 3 wires then there ought to be an easy way to do it. I just need to find out the purpose for each wire.

Seat belt receptacles from the Z will be re-used. They will relatively easily fit on the Mini seats. Easiest option since the BMW seat belts will not fit into the receptacles from the Mini.

I just screwed with this not long ago and I'm pretty sure the Z has a 2-wire connection to occupancy sensor. But first there is a module into which the harness plugs and it's mounted up under the seat. My module is "lazy" in that it takes about 3 minutes before it shuts off the light. I learned it was the module when I plugged in the ebay-acquired bypass (it plugs into the module). So, if you just want to get things going for now (temporary or permanent) you could pull the module off your Z3 seat, plug it into the harness and plug the bypass into it.

[CoconutPete]

I still dig these seats and I still want to retrofit them into a Z.

The project has been moved back priority wise though.

I went to visit an old buddy down in Georgia this weekend and I had sent him on a wild goose chase a while back to go get these.

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[Hoyt Clagwell]

I still dig these seats and I still want to retrofit them into a Z.

The project has been moved back priority wise though.

I went to visit an old buddy down in Georgia this weekend and I had sent him on a wild goose chase a while back to go get these.

`nice score. Those seats would be great. I wasn't a big fan of the look of the Mini Cooper seats. That round headrest looks a little too cutsie for my taste.

It looks to me like that split in the drivers side seat bottom would be fairly easy to repair by taking the cover off and just re-using the existing holes to sew it back together. I have a similar split in my drivers side regular Z3 seat although not as long and really only noticeable if you press down on it. It appears to me that the original thread is rotted but the leather is still intact with the holes. I have some curved leather working needles and some waxed thread that I used for my steering wheel project that someday I hope to use to repair the seat.

[CoconutPete]

Yep. I semi-stripped both seats down today.

I think the control module for up/down and back/forth may be fried on the drivers side, but I have spares to pull from in the stock seats.

Drivers side is the worst as I'm sure is always the case. Both are bone dry. We are going away for the 4th so I wanted to get a nice thick coat of leather treatment on them to soak.

I had a curved needle but it seems to have gone missing. I'll need to pick up another.

For the time being, the MINI seats are being turned into a 2-seater bench in my garage with a beverage shelf in the middle.

[Wcumoron]

If you happen to need some of the seat motors Pete, I have some locally.

[samtrak]

What's funny is that R53 MINI owners hate these seats. Ask me how I know.

[CoconutPete]

What's funny is that R53 MINI owners hate these seats. Ask me how I know.

How do you know???

All joking aside, I stuck the seat belt receptacles on eBay just for kicks and someone bought them for $80 instantly! So damage limitations - yay!

Also the R53 seat has made a really comfortable garage chair so far for me to take rests on.

Because I can't leave sh!t alone I pulled the radio out of our part time car which is a MKV Golf and started running wires for a backup camera....