Seasons greetings to all.
I'm a newbie on here but no stranger to Jaguars. I have owned Jaguars since 78 and have never been without one of some kind or the other. 13 years as a concourse judge for the JDC as well.
I have found a pair of very nice front seats from a 1998 XJR and they are memory seats. They have been unplugged and removed from the car without any damage. I'm very pleased about that as I want to mount them and use them as seats in my house.
What I want to know is, can I get them to work somehow by powering them up, and if it is possible, what will I need to do it?
I have the wiring diagrams for the model and I'm quite good with a meter!
Going to remove the airbags tomorrow to make them safe but I need to know if I'm on a hiding to nothing.
Many thanks in advance. Steve

 

Welcome to the forum Steve,

I've moved your question from General Tech Help to X308 forum. Members here with this model will be able to help.

Please follow this link New Member Area - Intro a MUST - Jaguar Forums - Jaguar Enthusiasts Forum to the New Member Area - Intro a MUST forum and post some info about yourself and your vehicle for all members to see. In return you'll get a proper welcome and some useful advice about posting to the forum.

Graham

 

My first guess would be as long as you can figure which leads provide power to the harness in the seat, you should be fine as long as you use a power converter to DC with enough amperage to power them (unless you plan on using a spare car battery and charging it every so often)

 

Well that's my thoughts as well but I'm looking for maybe a few members that have had some success with it.
I've had a look round the web and found the wiring diagrams for the XJR V8 and if I can run them off in a readable content that will be a plus!
The power supply is obviously another subject but I'm sure I'll overcome that with a bit of research.
I've got some Xmas lighting to get up today, then its on to these seats.
I was a member on here a while ago (steve308) but the mods must have dropped me through lack of activity. Best car I've had, and I've had a few!

 

Have removed the airbag from the passenger seat and identified the various wires to the motors.
I'm thinking that the power supply is the brown plug on the left but if someone knows different, please let me know.
I'm hoping that there's an electrical expert here that can enlighten me on a few things, like does the control unit reverse the motors as they all have just two wires each and what's the white plug for on the right!

 

I believe the brown relay is for the heated seats. If you remove it seat still functions normal. Because of the computer control i don't know if you you can just apply power and have an overall working seat although i have applied direct power to the individual motors in the past to test/move seat. When you reverse polarity seat motors will move opposite direction as expected. You could direct soldier into the motors i suppose. I did not experiment with adding general power other than that due to the airbag.

each motor has a harness clip like resting on my thumb with two pins (+ and -), the actual motor is what my index finger is laying on. Add power and they move forward, reverse wires and they move opposite direction

 

Can you tell from the wiring diagram if the drivers seat control goes through the memory.

I had a friend do this with a set of SAAB seats. He had an old emergency car starter/jumper sitting around. He used the charging circuit from it and a new 20AH 12v sealed battery tucked under the seat. The battery will power the seats for a long time -- how many times are they moved around anyway. It's quick and easy to charge -- just plug in.

With a dedicated 12V supply it has to be "on" all the time -- and the motors require a fair amount of amps -- so you need a sizable supply.

 

Many thanks for that info greverrr.
The brown relay you have in your picture is missing in mine as you can see but at least I can rule that out as the power input to the control unit.
The air bag issue I've sorted by just removing it. The wires for it are separate from the motor system and I've removed those as well. That airbag is really tucked away in the side bolster and is quite difficult to get at. Anyone doing the same should be careful when taking it out as it has an on-board battery that could trigger the bag even though there's no vehicle battery connected.
I think that I will probably end up just connecting the motors direct to achieve the desired seating position, though it would be very useful to know exactly where the control unit gets its power from. Steve

 

The seat I'm working from is the passenger seat and it has a label on it saying "non memory". The driver seat has "memory" on it and to think of it, there would be no point in having a memory on a passenger seat!
There must be a point under that seat somewhere where the power enters the control unit and its really not very clear looking at the wiring diagram and I don't want to fry anything. There's an empty slot between the two fitted plugs on that control unit but the pins are so frail that I doubt they would stand the draw from the motors so I've ruled that out. If it is the power source I would like to know please.
I have the diagrams for the 98 and the 2001 cars. There's a plus and minus connection. One is marked as blue, the other is slate but I don't have either of those colours on my control unit. Confusing!

 

When trouble shooting my driver seat I found there are two power feeds.
One was the main power and the other right next to it in the plug was 12v coming the memory fuse(5amp). With a jumper between the seat functioned.
So I'm thinking power to both out of the car it it work. Just thinking out load because I'm thinking to put Jag seats in the F100. This may also work for you..