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Replacing beige interior, possibly leather??

Posted: Sun Jan 16, 2011 11:02 pm
by Roylewaa
Hi All,

My D9 LX has an awful beige interior which is pretty grubby to say the least, I'm looking at hopefully swapping it out for a darker colour, possibly leather one out of an Exec breaking locally, Is their anything I need in respect to the leather as ive heard mention of a ecu as the exec leather has memory seats??


A must is the arm rests on the front seats, as I love them and trying to source a replacement that has the same

My current interior has a manual front seat, if the replacement is electric how difficult is it to get power to them

Cheers for any info :)

Re: Replacing beige interior, possibly leather??

Posted: Sun Jan 16, 2011 11:11 pm
by lozz
hi mate,
ithink you will need some wiring and a ecu for the seats,
there is some topics on the forum ithink it may be worth a search,

is yours an Estate or saloon,?

Re: Replacing beige interior, possibly leather??

Posted: Sun Jan 16, 2011 11:43 pm
by Roylewaa
Cheers for the info mate, Yes ive had a look through old threads and learned the replacement interior has to be out of a D9 also and the seat ecu is under the seat, going to have a look at the exec tomorrow, its a saloon (same as mine is), if its no good theres a rapier in the scrapyard aswell, but as far as I know they dont have armrests on the front seats

Re: Replacing beige interior, possibly leather??

Posted: Sun Jan 16, 2011 11:49 pm
by lozz
Roylewaa wrote:Cheers for the info mate, Yes ive had a look through old threads and learned the replacement interior has to be out of a D9 also and the seat ecu is under the seat, going to have a look at the exec tomorrow, its a saloon (same as mine is), if its no good theres a rapier in the scrapyard aswell, but as far as I know they dont have armrests on the front seats
Good luck mate, 8)
ive been looking for a leather interior for 2mths,
can only find estate or coupe ones which wont fit so im told :(

Re: Replacing beige interior, possibly leather??

Posted: Mon Jan 17, 2011 10:12 am
by waue1978
Roylewaa wrote:Cheers for the info mate, Yes ive had a look through old threads and learned the replacement interior has to be out of a D9 also and the seat ecu is under the seat, going to have a look at the exec tomorrow, its a saloon (same as mine is), if its no good theres a rapier in the scrapyard aswell, but as far as I know they dont have armrests on the front seats
Rapiers don't have armrests. As far as wiring & ECUs goes, yes it is a pain to get power to it. In mine we routed a live from under the bonnet into the cabin (passing inside the passenger front wing) & routed the wire down the centre console, then under the carpet to mee the rest of the seat wiring. My seats didn't have the ECU though, so was a straightforward live & earth feed to the yellow plug. The passenger seat from a full leather car will be the same as mine, but the drivers seat with memory is where it gets complicated. There are a couple of options though:

1. Get in touch with a guy called Adrian Bingham - he breaks Coupes & sells modified seat ECUs which only need a live & earth feed. You can find him on the 406 Coupe forum or look for coupe breakers on Ebay & you'll spot his username.

2. You could use the passenger seat as a pattern & trace the wires on that & replicate it on the drivers seat. Main thing to remember there is that you will need to solder an earth wire to the control switch on the drivers side.

3. You could find a GTX & pull the seat wiring from the drivers seat of that & insert into the leather.

4. You could try Europe & see if you could source a passenger leather seat (as that would be the drivers seat over here) which wouldn't have the memory control.

or 5. You could strip the covers & cushions off of the leather seats & transplant them onto your manual frames.

Re: Replacing beige interior, possibly leather??

Posted: Mon Jan 17, 2011 10:18 am
by Gary406
its pretty straight forward to get the seats wired up (neg and live)
but the drivers seat has a load of wires on so the hardest bit is finding the live and neg
also the heated seats wont work unless you do sum serious wiring up and add a relay and switch
i wouldnt worry about the memory bit to be honest , once wired in and moved to your desired position they will be ok ...
when buying a leather make sure you get all headrests - front and back
and the side sections on the rear seats (these are seperate from the seats themselfs)

the cheaper more simpler solution would be to get a black cloth interior out of a D9 RAPIER model 406 but these seats dont have armrests
also might be worth doing the carpet while the seats are out i once did a full interior including seats , doorcards and carpet
the carpet is a nightmare to get out but is worth it in the long run, center console out and i had to cut the beige carpet out
the new black carpet was cut down the center so that the cut was hiden under the center console (makes fitting the new carpet much easier)
dont cut the back section of the carpet

Re: Replacing beige interior, possibly leather??

Posted: Mon Jan 17, 2011 10:20 am
by Gary406
you can buy center arm rests that bolt the the sides of the center console,

thats if you go for the rapier option, personally i would go for the leather tho

Re: Replacing beige interior, possibly leather??

Posted: Mon Jan 17, 2011 4:07 pm
by Roylewaa
Ok chaps, Ive managed to get a complete leather interior out of a breaking exec saloon, I managed to get all the seats, including ecu for the memory, all headrests, leather sides from back seat all doorcards, gearnob, gaitor, hdi engine cover and the steering wheel all for £50

I was lucky as the car is getting crushed at the end of the week so he said I could take as much as I wanted off it for £50 notes which I thought was a absolute steal

Underneath the drivers seat looks an absolute nightmare, about 5 or 6 multiplugs which I just disconnected from under the seat for quickness

Obviously at the moment the seats have no wiring plugs to them, not bothered about them being heated or the memory bit working, just the power to adjust the seat will do just fine

So my questions basically are would it be worth going back and trying to get the looms that go to the seat from the exec breaking, as my LX only has manual adjusting airbagged seats, Obviously I will at least need the multiplugs and a bit wiring to get power to the seat at the least??

Could I not take a feed from the ciggy lighter?? All I want is a live and neg for the adjustment on both front seats, So the yellow plug is the seat power??

Ive got to go back up tomorrow anyway for the carpet (cheeres for the advice on that aswell re cutting to make removal/fitting easier as I think black leather would look naff with a beige carpet :shock:
Any info would be much appreciated, At the mo im just scratching my head looking at the interior here :shock:

Also should there be an amp somewhere as I noticed all the speakers were JBL's

Can't believe this exec has sat since August last year and no-one has had the leather out of it till now :roll:

Re: Replacing beige interior, possibly leather??

Posted: Mon Jan 17, 2011 4:29 pm
by highlander
Get the seat ECUs, the head unit, and the JBL speakers and amp (the amp will be in the boot, possibly hidden behind a flap or inside a compartment to keep it out of the way - on my Coupe, it's on the left side of the boot behind a flap).

The seat ECU is needed for retrofitting the functions into the lower-spec trim car; ade1122 on the Coupe Club forums (http://www.peugeot406coupe.com/phpBB3) will sell you a wiring loom that you can use to hook up to this ECU. Let him know you've already got a working seat ECU (I'm assuming it's working, but ade1122 can sell you an ECU also if the Exec's one is goosed).

The JBL stuff is good quality kit; the stock Clarion tape-deck head unit is a bit crap, but it does at least output at line level to the JBL amp. Even if you don't wind up using the JBL amp, JBL speakers, or Clarion HU, you can sell them on to other folks who would want them via these here forums.

Re: Replacing beige interior, possibly leather??

Posted: Mon Jan 17, 2011 4:34 pm
by Roylewaa
Cheers for that, I will look into that, tbh could I not do away with the seat ecu and just wire up a live and neg to get the seat motors working? not bothered at all about the memory and heated parts

The head unit was gone im afraid and at the left side of the boot theres a cd changer under a flap, I'l have a dig around tomorrow when im back up there

Re: Replacing beige interior, possibly leather??

Posted: Mon Jan 17, 2011 6:25 pm
by highlander
The CD changer is behind the flap, but further into the compartment (towards the front of the car) you should see the JBL amp, if it hasn't already been nicked (like the HU has).

Re: Replacing beige interior, possibly leather??

Posted: Mon Jan 17, 2011 6:48 pm
by Gary406
£50 :shock: :shock: :shock:

that is the bargain of the year ....

Re: Replacing beige interior, possibly leather??

Posted: Mon Jan 17, 2011 8:22 pm
by Roylewaa
Gary406 wrote:£50 :shock: :shock: :shock:

that is the bargain of the year ....
Yeah I thought so aswell, I was in a mad flap to take it out incase he changed his mind :supafrisk:
He even connected a battery up to the car for me (even tho the engine was gone and alot of wiring butchered) and both seats sprung into life and worked perfectly, amazing considering it's sat since August last year with no windows in it and a missing engine :shock: Good job really as I had to move the seats forward the backward to get at the bolts in the runners
I did have to do a small repair to the drivers seat bolster with black cotton as it had about a 2 inch rip in it, not bad with the old sewing needle so you can hardly tell, I will probably have the seat professionally repaired once theyre in as there's a good upholstry repairer just down the road in the industrial estate

I feel it will look nice when in, and a good contrast, black car, black leather

Re: Replacing beige interior, possibly leather??

Posted: Tue Jan 18, 2011 2:40 am
by waue1978
Roylewaa wrote:Cheers for that, I will look into that, tbh could I not do away with the seat ecu and just wire up a live and neg to get the seat motors working? not bothered at all about the memory and heated parts

The head unit was gone im afraid and at the left side of the boot theres a cd changer under a flap, I'l have a dig around tomorrow when im back up there
You can with the passenger seat, but this won't work with the drivers seat as the power is routed through the ECU. That is why I said to use the passenger seat wiring as a pattern & replicate it with the drivers seat.

Re: Replacing beige interior, possibly leather??

Posted: Tue Jan 18, 2011 9:26 am
by Roylewaa
Ok, Im down to 2 options really as car electrics aint really a strong point, Could I find a electric drivers seat out of a GLX and swap the base over, and retrim the leather base so the seat wouldint have an ece and just need a live and neg feed, would an earth still needed to be soldered onto the switch?