Can I run jumper cables to my power seat from my car or do I need to buy a battery to test it? Thx in advance. Might be a stupid question.... Gonna start fitting system for a bracket and wanna move it all the way back...

 

 

Mine only uses one power lead, they ground through the frame to the chassis. You certainly could use jumper cables, but as dmack says they might be a bit unwieldy. A couple lengths of 12ga stranded wire with medium sized alligator clips (radio shack) soldered or crmped on the ends are all you need for jumper wires and are a handy thing to keep in you tool box. If given the choice and I was making them to keep in my tool box, I'd opt for ones with plastic boots over them as you'd be less likely to accidentally short one out. For the purpose you could use 2 6V dry cells wired in series or a small inexpensive garden tractor or motorcycle battery from Wallyworld. The pos side of the battery would go to the power lead and the neg side to the seat frame, but if you should hook it up reversed it will just run backwards.

 

WARNING !!! WARNING !!!

A thought just came to mind with Jason's question. One of the handiest things you can have in your shop is a "Jump start box". They sell them everywhere for 30 bucks and up... depending on bells, whistles, compressors, lights... i think some even come with a George Foreman Grill.


They are an excellent test battery for just what Jason needs... light enough to take to the salvage yard to test parts/lights/relays etc. I've used the same one for years powering my hood up and down 14 gazillion times as we fit it up and make adjustments. also used it for testing bear claw latch install and a hundred other things... they are also much lighter than a full sized battery and have an adequate handle for carrying... Mine will even charge my cell phone thru the USB port..

later
John

 

If you have a cordless drill 12 volt or higher you can use that.

By the way Mr. Niolon, I just run across the thread you posted about your surgery, glad to hear you're on the mend and getting back at it. Six weeks is a long to to have your arm glued to you side.

 

thanks John.....

it's actually good to get back to work... cabin fever was getting me down

j

 

I don't think any of the power seats I've had were grounded to the seat frame. They need a hard-wired ground because they need to run in reverse by flipping polarity. Jrock, if you don't know what they came out of you should make every effort to find out, they aren't usually very simply wired, especially if the vehicle had seat controls on the console.

 

Just a simple question. These seats don't have side airbags in them, do they? I spoke to a guy last summer who bought some seats from a junkyard for his model a hotrod. He bought them because they were heated seats. The yellow wires were right there, easy to hook up. He decided to hook 12v to them to ensure the heaters worked before he had them recovered. In his closed garage, the side airbag went off. The seat flew one way, he was knocked the other way. The dog crapped and went nuts. His wife rapidly appeared, her screams of fear unheard over his ringing ears. He was dumbfounded as to what the he!! just happened. Air bags! Who would have thought.
In the end, he did recover the seats, after removing the air bag on the other one. He tells the story well, with sound effects and lots of arm waving. He's still bummed about the lack of seat heaters, though.

 

These are the only 2 wires I had. And the drill battery worked perfect. They wired clipped right in to the battery leads. All motors worked perfect. No airbags that I can see!

 

I'm glad it worked out for you, I got the idea from
Drewski 2. Makes it easy when checking out seats at a wreckers.

 

I've use a 18V drill battery to move the seats around to get to the mounting bolts - Slicker then dog snot

 

Yeah I could tell my battery was almost dead cuz they seats were moving slower and slower... At least I hope it was the battery

 

Thanks for that tip and for the original post. This one went into the notebook along with the several hundred other tips I got from this site !!