Jeep Cherokee KL Leather/Heated Seat Swap

[boxyjeep]

I've been making some good progress on my 1988 Comanche Pioneer (build thread here) and finally pulled the trigger on a seat upgrade.  The truck originally came with a blue interior and bench seat.  Since then I've converted to buckets, replaced the carpet and headliner, and cleaned/painted the dash and panels (among many other things).  The original buckets that I used were from an older Cherokee Laredo that I was super lucky to find in a junkyard in near mint condition.  Despite this, I found these seats to be super uncomfortable and they made it impossible to get behind the seats.

 

Original interior when I bought the truck in 2018:

 

 

Cleaned-up and newer buckets, carpet, headliner, console, etc. installed:

 

 

Despite looking good, I really wanted a more comfortable set of seats.  I was initially looking for Wrangler Rubicon seats that had the ability to tilt forward, but these only came in 2-door Wranglers and are very difficult to find in leather trim.

 

Eventually, I found a nice set of Jeep KL Limited front leather seats on eBay.  They had an embossed "Jeep" logo and were heated, had drivers-side power adjustment, and the passenger side would fold flat.

 

 

After receiving them, it was clear that the seats would be a tight fit and seat tracks would need a lot of adjustment.

[boxyjeep]

I was originally going to start on the drivers side, but due to the transmission/transfer case hump, I decided it would be easiest to do the passenger side first.  After some measurements, I found that the seat sliders were a bit too wide apart to fit into the Comanche.  I disassembled the seat and drilled out the slider rivets and swapped them from left to right with some washers as spacers.  This netted about 3-4" less track width which would fit on the floorpan.

 

 

The only problem with this was that the forward-backward adjuster bar needed to be re-oriented.  Despite attempting to get the slider apart, these are not removable.  I ended up cutting it off, rotating, and then welding it back together.

 

I had a set of universal seat mounts that one of the vendors sells on here that I was originally going to use, but they placed the seat too high.  I ended up creating some very simple brackets and welding them to 2"x3/8" steel that I used for cross-braces.

 

 

Not my best welds, but should hold up just fine.  The rear cross brace has mount that is flat on the floor.

 

 

After getting the seat back together and installed, it's a very tight fit, but works.

 

 

The fold-down capability is also very nice:

 

 

 

 

[boxyjeep]

Drivers side is a lot more complicated.  It has power adjusters for seat height, front-to-rear slide, and front-of-seat height.

 

 

Going through a few iterations of seeing what I could remove to still fit the sliders, eventually found that everything needed to be removed:

 

 

As you can see, the brackets that attach to the sliders are mounted to steel tubes.  Unfortunately, due to the reduced floor pan width from the drivers side transmission tunnel, spacers would need to be ~6" long and would likely bend.  To solve this, I fabbed some rudimentary replacement brackets and cut off the originals:

 

 

I then built the cross-brace system for the sliders using 3"x3/16" steel:

 

 

Situated in the truck--will likely be cutting down the adapter brackets that I have for the front and building something custom for the rear.

 

 

That's where we stand so far.  I need to build those mounts, attach the slider assembly to the base of the seat, and then see what power adjusters I can salvage.  It will definitely have front-to-rear power, and hopefully at least one of the vertical adjusters.  After that's all done, I'll need to get the power/heat wired in without setting off the airbags :-)

 

 

[Pete M]

 

 

what an upgrade! 

[boxyjeep]

Drivers seat has been a headache to say the least.  I can't believe how wide the transmission tunnel is.  I've wrapped up fabricating all the brackets and now just waiting for the paint to dry before putting everything back together.  Hoping to have this done this week.

 

[boxyjeep]

I've got the drivers seat in and mounted up.  It sits a little bit high--I'm 5'10" and if I wear a hat, it will slightly touch the headliner.  I'm going to drive it for a bit and see if I want to cut the rear mount down a bit.  Power adjusters for horizontal adjust (front-back), rear lean, and lumber support all work as expected.  I had to remove the vertical adjust as there would be no place to go (up or down) with how tight the transmission tunnel is and how I had to modify the frame.

 

 

I have the wiring running through the center console and also connected up the heated seats.  There was only a single wire going to each "panel" in the base and rear of the seats.  The KL uses an electronic heated seat module that receives a digital input from the CAN BUS and likely modulates the temperature with a PWM controller and embedded thermometer in each seat.  I'm hoping that a single analog switch will work ok.  I'm in southern CA, so I doubt I will use them much.

 

 

Up next is re-doing the passenger mounts.  I'm not 100% happy with where the seat ended up, so I'm going to be cutting them off and slightly moving the seat more inboard to match the alignment of the drivers side.  If I were to do this again, I would probably have just bought a set of Corbeau seats and brackets and saved myself a few weekends worth of work.

 

 

 

 

 

[boxyjeep]

Lost track of this thread a bit, but finally got this project all done.  I ended up re-doing each mount at least once.  It's very difficult to properly center the seat with the proper height while also ensuring it can move forward/backward correctly.  

 

Completed drivers side brackets (notice the diagonal alignment for the rear mounting points):

 

 

Final fitment--the power adjustment and heat is functional:

 

 

Overall, I'm very happy with how they ended up, but in the future would just buy a set of Corbeau Trailcats with pre-fabbed brackets.  I would estimate at least 20-30 hours into this swap.

[motownXJdad]

On 10/6/2022 at 2:31 PM, SoCalJeepComanche said:

Lost track of this thread a bit, but finally got this project all done.  I ended up re-doing each mount at least once.  It's very difficult to properly center the seat with the proper height while also ensuring it can move forward/backward correctly.  

 

Completed drivers side brackets (notice the diagonal alignment for the rear mounting points):

 

 

Final fitment--the power adjustment and heat is functional:

 

 

Overall, I'm very happy with how they ended up, but in the future would just buy a set of Corbeau Trailcats with pre-fabbed brackets.  I would estimate at least 20-30 hours into this swap.

they came out great though, and I'm sure the factory Jeep seats are better quality than the aftermaket ones. nice work man👍

[boxyjeep]

10 hours ago, motownXJdad said:

they came out great though, and I'm sure the factory Jeep seats are better quality than the aftermaket ones. nice work man👍

Haha thanks, yes I believe they are quite a bit better.  The embossed “Jeep” on the back is also a plus.