Heated seats part 1 - preparation

So living in the north where it is cold, I have decided to fit heated seat pads to my Cobra's seats. I had said a while ago that any future cars I had with leather seats would always be heated. But in my infinite wisdom decided not to bother for the Cobra - big mistake!

The heat pads for both seats were ordered from Amazon for just £58, including switches, relays and vat. This compares with a 2015 GD price list (which is all I had) at about £300 inc vat. I have decided to fit the switches to the under dash trays to avoid cluttering the dashboard. They have LED indicators showing that the heaters are off or on and at what setting. I may not be able to see the passenger side warning light from the driver's seat, but I should feel the driver's seat warm! This should remind me to check the passenger side.

First the seats were removed by undoing the four nuts and bolts that held each seat in place.

One of the removed seats

A seat base was removed from the seat. The base is held in place by Velcro all around and at the front the leather. I lifted the base from the back, pivoting it towards the front. I then found out that the front was also held in place by some glue, so I had to carefully detach it.

Velcro and glued area on front of seat base

I had expected the back rest to be the most difficult, so I explored this first. The leather was secured with staples at the base.

Staples at base of seat back

These were removed and to my delight the back leather was not stuck to the foam, so the pad can simply be fed up the back and attached with the sticky tape provided.

Next, the leather was released from around the back of the seat base. This Revealed that the leather was stuck to the foam! So I had to remove the staples from all around the seat base. This was a very time consuming process, because I didn't want to damage the leather. The Velcro was left in place on the base, but staples were removed where necessary.

Staples removed all around

Once all the staples that located the leather had been removed - loads of them, I tackled the delightful job of separating the leather from the foam. The leather was glued fully on to the top of the foam seat base. Once the leather was released, I scraped off the remnants of foam and lightly sanded this to remove any that I had missed.

Cleaned up seat base leather (reverse side)

To get to this point took me about 3 hours for one seat. Now for the other!

I have also ordered some upholstery staples to help me put it all back together, along with some contact adhesive.

When the pads arrive I will tackle the installation and wiring of them.