'89 Stepside "Way Cool Jr."

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Dubs

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Ice Cube's "It Was a Good Day" needs a verse where he goes to Pull-A-Part and finds everything he needs.

I'd been yesterday and scored a pristine hood for my son's Mustang, and scoped out a pair of Cadillac seats for WCJr. I couldn't get them because the seats were slid all the way back, the rear bolts were hidden, and I didn't have a battery. I also looked under the beds of a dozen trucks before I found an uncut taillight harness. Every stinkin' one had been hacked up with wire taps to add in a trailer hitch. The one I found has the extra factory wires to add in a 7-pin connector! Quick tip - most Suburbans aren't cut up and have the extra wires. I also found a plug-in tap for trailer wires and threw that on. No sense in cutting the harness if I don't have to.



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This morning my son and I hit up Pull-A-Part as soon as they opened. He went straight to the Mustangs and scored an unbroken headlamp mantle - his has epoxy holding it together. He also got a pair of intact headlamps and a door hinge. He's going back in the next few days to get the other door hinge. We had to leave early to make it to church on time.

I took my jump box and powered up the 1994 Cadillac Seville. 84,000 miles, no body damage, and everything looked beautiful... except... the HUGE rats' nest under the hood. What I could see of the engine harness was bare wire. The interior of the car was all Hanta virus and black mold. I got the seats, the heated seat switches, and as much of the harness as I could cut out. Cadillac ran the seat harnesses into the center console harness, so it's not as much plug and play as I'd hoped it would be. I'm guessing I'll be back at Pull-A-Part on Christmas Eve, looking for a Power Seat Memory Module. I'm still googling for a wiring diagram.


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I spent an hour or so this afternoon with leather cleaner, and got the mouse turds and mold off the seats. The leather is very nice, the seats are comfortable, and best of all, when I was cleaning them I found a change purse with a $10, two $1s, and another five-plus dollars in change. Seats were on sale today, so after taxes I made about two bucks buying the seats.

The bed is back down on the truck, the rear harness is installed, and if I can get the right rear tailgate latch to work correctly, I'll have the rear of the truck finished up enough for driving.
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You might find the schematic you need on line for the seats. I'm doing the same thing with cadi seats in mine. My seats are 1-3/4 wider than factory. You'll have to make your own seat brackets. I'm still trying to figure out the heated and massage functions. I have everything else working. My seats are out of an 09 dhs
 

Erik the Awful

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You're going to have to do what I did. Start tracing and figuring it out on your own. Cadillac hides those schematics pretty good
Thanks! Having been trained by the Air Force, I hate working without tech data, but I cut the electrical tape off the harness and clamped my jump box onto the big red and black wires. The seats function, and by plugging the orange wire into power the bolsters also work. The seat heaters, not so much. I'll have to play around with them a bit.

I disassembled the interior and I'm not very impressed with conversion trucks. As much as they charged back in the day, I expected better build quality and more function than some extra interior spotlights. One of the previous owners did a decent job of patching the interior back together with all sorts of scrounged hardware. The interior panels looked remarkably intact when I bought it, but once I pulled them out I found sheetmetal screws, double-sticky tape, etc.

The seats had been nice at one time, with a cool jump seat in the middle that had a hidden compartment. It was all pretty trashed, and once I pulled it all I got a good look at the seat frame. It's going to take a bit of cutting and welding to get it modified for the Caddy seats, but I think it'll work.

I'm taking a break for a late lunch, and then I think I'm going to scrub the interior and vacuum it out. Pics later.
 

Erik the Awful

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My wife dailys an '09 Chrysler 300 with heated seats. They work flawlessly. Not sure what Ford's been doing lately.

The old nasty seat is out.


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It really looks like it was nice when it was made. The center console jump seat is pretty cool, but it's garbage to me. I was going to rework the bracket to hold down the new seats, but after spending half an hour cutting it apart and removing the tabs, I realized it was a lost cause. I have some 2" .090 wall square tubing. Four 18" sections will work nicely for holding the seats down. My cordless drill died before I got the first one finished, I can't find the corded drill, and it was time to pull the brisket off the smoker (multi-tasking for the win!), so pictures at a later date.

With the seat out, I went ahead and removed the rest of the interior.


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I scrubbed some pretty nasty gunk out of the truck. I'm either gonna live forever, or they're going to name a new disease after me. I used soapy water, and old t-shirt, and a paint scraper for the thick bits. It ain't ****-and-span, but it's a heck of a lot cleaner, and definitely good enough for a work truck. I'll post a cleaned pic when I get the seat brackets finished.

I have all the plastic interior bits in the bed, and I'm going to vinyl-paint them black. I was planning on painting the carpet black and reusing it, but it has a bunch of cigarette burns in it and it's ripped on the transmission tunnel. I've decided I'm going to replace it, but I'm not sure what with yet. I'd love to buy a new carpet, but more than likely I'll find the least funky intact carpet at Pull-A-Part and recolor it.

A lot of the clips are broken off the trim pieces, but I'm going to do like the previous owner and double-sticky them back in place. If it were a show truck or a candidate for Jay Leno's Garage, I'd spend the money on nice replacements. This truck's gonna be a workhorse.

The entire stereo system, speakers and all, is gone. No worries, I'm pretty sure it was all crap. I am going to invest in a decent sound system... eventually. Gotta get it running first. The rest of the exhaust system parts are getting ordered in early January.
 

Erik the Awful

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When I got the seats and the heated seat switch box, I grabbed all the wiring as far back into the car's harness as I could. There were a blue and a gray connector in the center console. After I cut the harness apart, it looks like the gray harness doesn't go to the seats. The blue harness matches the diagram below. I had to cut the black, brown and orange wires, which matches what I see here. Tomorrow or Thursday I'll hook the brown and orange up to power, ground the black, and see if I get heat.

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Dubs

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When I got the seats and the heated seat switch box, I grabbed all the wiring as far back into the car's harness as I could. There were a blue and a gray connector in the center console. After I cut the harness apart, it looks like the gray harness doesn't go to the seats. The blue harness matches the diagram below. I had to cut the black, brown and orange wires, which matches what I see here. Tomorrow or Thursday I'll hook the brown and orange up to power, ground the black, and see if I get heat.

View media item 32069

The way I read this, as long as you have the factory switch for the heated seats they should work when you hook up those wires.
 
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