Sport - they leather is in great condition, it's just that there is no cushioning compared to my 4runners cushion, the ride of course is superb on the bmw as opposed to the runner, errrr......

Weird, I find the 4Runner seats don't have enough cushioning in the right places and too much in the wrong places. The lumbar support stabbing me in the back is exceptionally irritating.

I should have stated, I had my front seats re-done. New foam bottom/back with new pleather (about $700), ultra soft then firms up with weight. Perhaps I should do the same to the 330?

Wiring information I found, supplemented by my reply, on another thread:

I am currently looking into how to hook up the BMW's seat occupancy sensor properly.

Its looking more like the E90 seats aren't quite so much of a bolt-in as the F30s were. May still be doable with just drilling a couple new holes in the rails, but I'm starting to lean more towards welding the brackets onto the rail. That said, it would likely be a simple task for a welder and therefore not terribly expensive.

One reason I'm thinking the above is that the E90 seats have ~1/2" (more likely 13mm) holes for bolts to hold the seats to the floors. The Toyota bracket holes are 5/16" or smaller once you've drilled out the rivets and spot welds - yes, I can confirm that the brackets are not only riveted but spot welded to the rails.


IMG_8009

One spot weld is visible as a circle above the reverse-stamped R on this bracket, above the partially drilled rivet.

IMG_7971


Another issue is that the 1/2" holes have a reinforcing surround as part of the rail that makes it a bit problematic on one side. It makes it a bit difficult to mount up the outside rear corner leg because the holes are inconveniently placed. This isn't helped by the fact that the brackets aren't mounted the same distance apart on the Toyota rails. The outside brackets are riveted on 13.25" hole centers and the inside brackets are on 14.25" hole centers:


IMG_8013


IMG_8011

The 14.25" hole spacing is roughly the same as on the BMW rails, but the 13.25" spacing could be an issue as that puts it right in the middle of the BMW seat rail rack.

Turns out E90 seats aren't direct bolt ups. As feared, the shorter bracket distance on one side of the Toyota's seat turned out to be incompatible with bolting up the brackets to the E90 rails. However, that doesn't mean they can't be used in the 4R, just that it takes a little more work.

The reason: As mentioned above, one side has brackets mounted on holes centered 14.25" apart, and that matches up well with the factory BMW mounting holes. Unfortunately, on the other side, the hole centers are 13.25" apart and that basically is incompatible with the BMW rails without making adapter brackets that would raise the seat up beyond where I want it. Here's why that's an issue.


IMG_2477

In the above picture, you can see the four shiny squares on the rails where the BMW seat is bolted into the car at the factory. These are reinforced with additional layers of sheet metal; the holes in those reinforcements/the rail are a nominal 12mm wide and 9.5mm deep. The green arrow points to the motor that moves the seat fore and aft on the rails, the red arrows are where the motor's output shafts (Bowden cables, actually) enter the rack and pinion drive on each rail. This means that there's a threaded shaft over the rail that is riveted to the rail near those mounting holes and blocking access to the rail from above in the area the shaft runs. You can see a detail of the riveted point in the below picture.


IMG_2487

Here's what's on the other side - the top red arrow points at the rivet and the bottom at the threaded shaft.


IMG_2481

The arrow here points at the threaded shaft.


IMG_2480

On the outside rail of the seat, the brackets bolt to the factory BMW holes just fine and will be in the correct position to mount into the truck.


IMG_2500

On the inside rail, it just isn't happening. Even if you bolt the brackets in using the holes that produce the shortest distance between the brackets, you are still over half an inch too far apart to get the thing to mount in the truck.


IMG_2499

And, because of that rivet on each end plus the rack it's holding on, there's no way to drill a hole to mount the brackets closer together and still bolt everything down. So, it looks like if you're looking for an easy pure bolt-in solution with some hole wallowing you're going to have to use F30-series seats.

However, not all is lost. The rail spacing is fine, the rails themselves are nice and flat and the seat is self contained, still making them otherwise ideal swap candidates. I'll just have the Toyota brackets welded to the BMW rails. This project will be proceeding.

Thanks for documenting all this.

Dropped the BMW seats off at the welder's last night and left my passenger seat with them as a direct example so they didn't just have to work off my measurements. Some direct comparison shots - keep in mind that the BMW seat has flat rails but with the stock brackets on the Toyota seat cannot sit level on a floor.


IMG_8072


IMG_8070


IMG_8068


IMG_8065

I now have a final price list for the conversion.

2009 BMW E92 (coupe) seats with part of the BMW's wiring harness included as a pigtail (yes, I will do the electrical stuff in the thread soon): $150 for the pair
1999 4Runner Limited power seat wiring connectors: $5
2001 4Runner SR5 cloth manual seats for bracket donors: $50
Welding charges: $70
Miscellaneous leather cleaning products and wiring supplies: $50

Total price: $325

By way of comparison: Leather seat back cover for driver's seat, which is ruined on my truck: $446.56 from Camelback Toyota.

I did get a deal on these seats - average retail on them in my area seems to be about $200 each or $400 the pair if you want top of the line seats from an E90 coupe (AKA E92). The sedan seats are more or less the same except they don't have the shoulder mounted manual seatback flip release or the shoulder mounted fore and aft traverse seats; those go for $100-150 each. If you want the non-sport seats without the adjustable bolsters and such, they are usually about $25-50 less and manual versions are often cheaper still. That said, most BMW owners don't like the standard non-sport seats. Both Sport and non-sport seats are offered with or without heaters and lumbar.

And got them in:


IMG_2566

All power adjustment features work - subject to the CANBUS sleep issue, of course.

hmm. wonder if my E46 seats will mount in my first gen Taco, then? - that would be an improvement, I think.

Looks awesome! So, sounds like a momentary NC switch could be used as a "wake" button, if mid-drive seat adjustments were needed.

I wonder what it would take with something like this to fool the seats to stay awake...
https://www.sparkfun.com/products/13262

That's a bit of overkill - apparently you only need to provide +5V and ground to a couple wires on each seat to keep the seat computers awake. A simple 12V to 5V converter will suffice and I'll order one in next week.

That said, I'm not entirely sanguine about the original Toyota 30A power wire when connected to the BMW seats - but I'll post more about that later after I recover from the all-nighter I pulled putting the seats in.

I don't know, but they don't seem to be very popular for seat swaps and the E90's do seem to be increasingly popular as seat swap donors for other makes. I do know some of the E46s have seat rail assemblies that aren't flat and that makes for a more difficult swap.

Ah - I figured it was waiting for specific CAN messages when I was glancing through. Converter - just use the guts of an old phone charger or the likes - most are 5v for USB

I wouldn’t be too worried about the power wire. It will be used infrequently, and only in short bursts. Wire ratings are for continuous current handling anyway.

You'd think it would be looking for CAN messages, but apparently it doesn't - just wants to see a carrier, as it were. -shrug- Others have found this out previously.

As for the power wire, I've looked at a couple of dead 3rd gen 4Rs in the junkyard in the last couple of days and they show evidence of scorching on their power seat wire too, even with I guess sporadic use. Since I'd like to get the seat heaters working on this thing long term, I don't think I can use the original Toyota power wire for that.

I'm the OP of that Reddit post, just came across this post looking for something else lol did you get the seats to prevent them from going on sleep mode?

I have now upgraded to f32 seats and gave my f30 seats to my friend with a 1st Gen Tacoma (yes, they'll fit a Tacoma). I also made my own rear brackets to set the seat a little bit lower.
The f32 seats have full lumbar support and you can adjust the sides so you don't move around when off-roading.
I have gathered e46 and e90 seats and possibly getting Volvo seats for testing and fitting to make a universal bolt-on bracket, I just had been really busy with work that I haven't had time.