I've developed an addiction to seat heaters. I first had them in my Crossfire SRT-6 and then in my Concorde Limited. They are GREAT for cold days since they will start heating quicker than your engine. You can also use them on those cool evenings to and from the cruise scene. Just fire up the heated seats and don't bother with the heater. They're perfect for work trucks in cold climates! Some kits are even waterproof.
If you've had a hard day at work they also soothe a sore back.
Best of all, you can hide the switch and nobody will know you've got them. That means you can drop them in a restoration and have stealthy bun warmers.

The heater in my eleventy-billion mile 1992 D250 takes a while to get up to temp so it was a perfect candidate for seat heaters. That old beast is what I drive when the weather gets ugly or there's physical work to be done.

Forgive the dirt and debris and check out the install. The heaters were installed at home and I did the electrical stuff in the heated shop at work.

I picked up a pair of seat heaters from a local upholstery shop for $100. The guys had been into the kits but all the important stuff was there. These came from heatedseatkits.com.

Each kit will contain the stuff to do one seat:
Seat bottom heater with pressure sensor
Seat back heater
High/low/off switch (lighted on new kits)
Wiring with 10 amp fuse holder
Zip ties
Small bit of tape



The seat bottom heater has a pressure sensor. That prevents the heater from turning on if you're not in the seat. That's a nice little safety device. It keeps the battery from running down if you or your passenger forgets to turn off the heater.

They weren't difficult to install but it does take a little time. You should be able to do both seats in a full afternoon.


******warning******
This is where it gets graphic. If you can't handle close-up shots of a hairy left arm and a horrifically filthy truck turn back now!



Here are the tools I used:



I grabbed a cheapie set of hog ring pliers at Harbor Freight for $8. They work great. New hog rings can be found at upholstery shops. They're sold in huge quantities but you only need 10 to 15 per seat. The guy I bought the heaters from gave me a huge handful of them.

The first thing you need to do is pull the seat. This takes less than a minute on my truck. It comes off with 4 nuts and you can leave the bracket in place.



Pretend you don't see 273,000 miles of dirt and debris and simply notice that the seat bracket is still in the truck.



Being the bachelor that I am, my living room floor became my workbench. The first thing I did was pull the recliner lever and hinge cover. Keep that lever handy. You'll want to move the seat around as you're working with it. Be sure to pull the hinge cover on the other side as well.



To get the arm rest off the seat, you need a stupid big Phillips screwdriver. Forget those #3 bits that come in the nut driver set. You need something bigger. Just push the material up from the bottom of the arm rest and twist the screw out. This one didn't put up too much of a fight.



Now, I hit one of the most annoying parts of the installation. It also took the most work. Meet Mr Arm Rest Bracket. The screws are the crazy big Phillips heads.



Mine were on insanely tight. I couldn't get them out with the big screwdriver. Instead, I bought one of those cheapie impact driver sets you bang on with a hammer. The screws laughed at it. I ended up putting the big impact bit in a socket and loosened the screws by pushing down HARD and slowly turning the ratchet. I was afraid I was going to break something.

Once that's done you need to loosen the seat covers. Fold the seat forward and you can unzip the seat back cover.



Next, hit the bottom cover. The skirts use long white clip strips to hold the cover.



The front skirt has a zipper you can open to ease the tension on the material. Pushing down on the seat cushion helps too. Be sure you remove the hog rings holding the welt to the seat springs. This is a good time to remove the hog rings holding the cushion to the seat frame. I found it easiest to cut them with a pair of end cutters.