2012 Access Cab Katzkin Leather Installation - pix heavy

AUGUST 2017 PHOTOBUCKET UPDATE
SINCE PHOTOBUCKET IS BROKEN FOREVER, HERE IS A LINK TO AN ALBUM THAT HAS ALL THE PHOTOS IN THIS THREAD.
https://flic.kr/s/aHsm6Ga7FJ



this is just a supplement to Homers thread, detailing a few little things.

important reading...
- HomersTaco's Thread
- Cannot emphasize enough... BenWA's post, it contains VERY important details that are sure to be overlooked.
Here post #372 on 4-24-2011
- Watch the Katzkin F150 video on you tube...


Notes...

Would I do it again? not sure. Am I glad I did it? Definitely. The Katzkin leather is very supple, and soft. It is precisely made to spec. I'm very satisfied with the product. If you've already read the above links then you have a general idea as to what you're getting involved with and how to do it. So I'm skipping the basics and covering a few areas that are specific to 2012 access cabs with the folding table top seat and airbags. I had a steep, trial and error learning curve with the seat heaters that i describe below along this timeline / blog.

I did not disconnect my battery. I made out 100% fine, no issues, and I did not trip the airbag fault light. Disconnect the seats, make sure the key stays out of the ignition until the seats are fully connected again.

Installation...
Time: 9 hours, back pain, leg pain, sore hands and one badly sliced open finger tip...

Below is the table top removed off the passenger seat. Be careful with its removal. You will pop the bottom out, then it will slide down and off. when you remove the bottom it will leave behind white pegs in the seat. you need to squeeze the tips of these pegs so they remove from the metal lean back frame. Then load them back into the seat tray tabs so they can be pushed and locked back in once you reinstall the tray. You get one shot at that, the tabs are very easy to break.

These rods surrounding the tray will be reused. These are the only rods that are reused on the passenger seat. The passenger lean back does not reuse up down roads on the front, these are already installed in the katzkins. (unlike the drivers side which does).

also shown here on the right is a little tab with a 10mm bolt. This bolt holds the airbag straps. Just make a note of which strap is top and bottom. thats all there is to "seat airbags"....



here is the outer strap loop...


inner strap


airbag wire routing...


airbag wire runs through the plastic cover. I disconnected the airbag plug/wire from the seat bottom and fished it backwards. You can disconnect it at the airbag side but I would not recommend that. Airbag plugs can be very tricky to pull off the airbags and break easily.




To me the trickiest part was removing the lean back off the passenger folding table seat. reflecting back its very easy to do...

There is a bar that the passenger lean back rotates around. This bar moves with the latches. It is keyed to fit the hinge assembles on both sides of the lean back. shown below to the right...



this is what needs to be taken apart, remove these 4 bolts...


remove the two lower bolts. this will detach the lean back from the bottom.



Now you have to remove the two bolts above that bolt into the lean back.
do this for both sides. These bolts (all 4) are TIGHT, think lug nut, breaker bar tight. Surprisingly no lock-tight used...



The entire assembly will simply pull off, leaving the big bar behind. Just slide the bar out. Take note of the orientation of all these pieces to put them back properly. mark them with a sharpie. The bar is keyed, but it can fit back in several different ways.

what you're left with


When you're done, your seat heater and airbag wires will come through the same spot again



I would cut the seat heater mats like this (BELOW)... i messed up two mats by making the rectangles too large (photo in post #5). dont cut the mats too much.



show below is the airbag wire and the passenger lean back heater wire coming out near the hinge.


passenger seat bottom


On the passenger seat bottom, above, there are these holes at the aft section, through the foam. I think they are for child seat anchors. The leather kit has cut outs for them, the factory cloth does not. Just cover the holes with your heater.

Headrest holes on lean backs... do this LAST
I used the "X" method. Using a brand new razor blade cut an X that is about 1.25", cut off the material behind it, and cut off the triangles after the X... then slide the leather around and massage into place.


drivers seat is very easy...
drivers seat bottom...


drivers seat airbag lean back wire coming through on the left


these down roads are to be reused... and this is an important step that is mentioned in BenWA's post...



The top of these down rods, must slide below horizontal bars near the top of the drivers side lean back. Plan accordingly. You'll need to slit the katzkin channel, and make sure this rod is threaded behind those bars.

bens photos below...





lean back with lower heater installed
(in retrospect, i wish i brought the drivers side lean back heating pad all the way up the seat back, just make small cut outs where the rings will go)


completed drivers side

 

Post installation and tips...
the first seat you do will take twice as long... and will be twice as bad
as you can see my drivers seat came out better than the passenger seat.

i have my share of wrinkles. these were taken right after i dropped them back in the truck. Since then, i have used a steamer ($30 at target) to help with the wrinkles. It has helped get MOST of them out. the passenger seat bolster im prob stuck with but the wrinkles im left with dont bother me. Also, in just the 24 hours or so since the installation the other wrinkles are mostly coming out as well as the seats set up.

 

Heater installation

also, its been about 38 hours or so since the leather install, and most of the wrinkles have gone away.

good news and bad news regarding my heater install...
the good news is the heater electrical connections are done and everything went smoothly... the bad news is, i cut too much around those rear passenger seat anchor holes and damaged the mat so i gotta redo that one.

that said, heres a few of the details.
the installation is pretty straight forward. it seems like a lot of wires but its not. one plug into each mat on each seat. the relay is already wired in, the switch goes right into a plug on the harness. you ground the black lead, and add power to the brown.

since i have an access cab, i tapped the two 20amp fuses that are designated for "rear power passenger window" and "rear drivers side power window". i dont have rear windows so i assumed these two locations are unused, even though they were populated with 20amp fuses. I used an add-a-circuit in each location, shown with yellow circles. The already empty locations, one on the top row, and 3 on the bottom row, did not indicate power when the truck was running unfortunately.




next i removed the center console and popped out the blanks



The grounding point i used was to the right of the shifter, a 10mm bolt. The relays i affixed to the seat bottoms. the power leads ran to the add-a-circuits at the mini fuse blocks... thats really all there is to it...

i was able to install the switch into each blank. if you use this method, be very careful, there is not much room to play with. if you do not hit exactly the center of the blank you'll over run an edge when you hone out the hole. I highly recommend a Uni-Bit (step drill) to do this.
(finger gashed open during leather install still healing)

blanks below...



Switch mounted in blank.







an additional note on wiring the folding table passenger seat lean back heater. Since the lean back hinges 90 degrees i figured it would be best to follow the airbag wire routing through the trim and into lower section to end up under the seat for the connection. (you can see this in post #1) doing this will not give you enough wire to plug into the heater wiring harness. the plug will end up near the hinge under the trim. What i did was i cut the connector off, and crimped on an additional foot of wire. on the other end, i re-crimped the plug on, that plugs into the wiring harness.

 

Thanks man put mine in the same spot. Good write up.

 

update: Passenger seat bottom heater repair from improper installation

this is how NOT to cut a seat heater. you can see where i cut around the holes in the foam making the mat too narrow around the rear cut outs...



i was able to remove the mat carefully from the foam, and reinstall.



new mat laid down



all done... finally working seat bottom heat
no more mods truck is finished

 

Update. Ugh I have more tweaking to do. The seat heat kits are easy but i def did not research it enough. I guess i took it for granted. With the onset of cold weather something's come up w the drivers seat bottom that's bugging me. im getting lots of heat right on my @ss and no heat under thighs. I'm going to pull the drivers seat and lay a new mat the full length of the seat bottom. Argh!

 

If you don't mind me asking how much did you pay for the kit?

Also good write-up been wanting to do this mod for a while

 

Fuck that get the Clazzio's, might not be as " SUPPLE" as the Katzkins. But that is way to much work for seat covers and heaters.

 

seat kit and heaters were around $950 to my door, in 3 weeks.

Clazzio is a good option, fast install time, they look nice, super simple, and you can still install seat heat. both have 3 year warranty.

Clazzio has plastic outsides, you cannot customize the kit the way i customized mine (perforation, color combo ect). Also, Clazzio does not have a 2012+ AC kit yet... Clazzio is a 8-16 week wait if you go two tone... Clazzio is a seat cover and looks it, when you see the seats they look fatter and the contours of the seat are muted (compare the photos). Katzkin kit includes leather for rear jump seats, leather for rear wall upholstery rear seat backs, leather for both strips on each front door, Clazzio does not. Katzkin allows full customization of the kit, there are no limits, how you want the head rests to look, where exactly you want and dont want perforations, how you want the color key to be. Clazzio does not allow for that. at the end of the day you need to pick the one that suits you. afaik, clazzio still does not have a kit for 2012+ AC. my truck was the first Katzkin 2012 AC, and i got the kit in about 3 weeks.

its really not that much work for what you're getting in return, its just very tedious. if you go into this knowing exactly what you're doing, you could prob knock this out in 4-5 hours. at the end of the day, these arent slip on covers. Slip on covers do offer some advantages, like servicing the effing seat heaters... my learning curve with the seat heaters has made this a PITA. but i choose the fit, looks and quality any day. Even if i did give up 9 hours of my life...

If you add in the cost of a professional reupholster job (the quote i got was $650), then the total price of this project is kind of nuts. That said, i have no buyers or modders remorse. this has by far transformed the experience of my truck for me. I drive 15-20,000 miles a year and am very active, ive always had leather in all my vehicles.

 

wow 9 hours though

 

Resolution:

pulled the drivers seat today and removed the seat bottom leather and bottom seat heater from the foam. I purchased a great set of DeWalt ring cutters (~$20 at HD). I regret not having these initially for doing the job.
these things worked so well, doing this repair today was actually therapeutic. only took an hour and a half.



my ass was getting extreme heat, with no heat under my thighs. Front part of the heat mat def not working... so reflecting back i was 2 for 4 on successful install for the heaters. i just didnt read up enough on this part of the job. all it boils down to is really limiting cutting the mat. when i initially cut the rectangles out here i must have cut them too large.



this time i only cut out little squares where the hog rings went. brought the mat to the front edge of the seat. everything is FINALLY working exactly how it should, lean back heat and nice even distribution of heat across the entire seat bottoms.

correct mat on the left. messed up one on the right.



hopefully this is the last part of this blog

 

Looks really good! The Clazzio's do look bulky and do not look proportionate. You did an excellent job. Funny how so many people dont wanna work hard for a better looking end result, I think thats whats wrong with this country.

 

I have a question. Does your manual state anywhere something about not putting a heater on the passengers seat? Mine says not to do it because of topside sensors for th easier bag detection. Has anyone heard of this? I can't seem to find a thread them points this out. They reference that the Toyota sienna comes with oly back heat for hits reason, and that most toyotas have this. I already put my seat back together, and I'll be damned if I take this apart again.

 

if you did both top and bottom, i think your fine... i would def leave it...

i had to take my lower seat bottoms apart twice (each). the outcome for both was successful, and the second time around was much faster. I did not have any problems with air bag system after doing the passenger seat. never heard of anything like that either. i did not remove the foam from the seat frame. my passenger air bag behaves normally.

i would lay as much mat as you can, evenly, be aware of each mats length (bottom and back), as its heat intensity is dependent on its length. any heating unevenness will be sensed by your body and will bug you, (it bugged me) ie. heat just on your back and not on your bottom, or uneven heat when on a particular setting.

 

Thats what I thought, i'm going to keep it. Not sure why they mentioned that, and i couldnt find anything that talked about it.

I kept both mats the same distance, and didnt cut any part of the mat out. I just cut small holes in the mat where the hog rings need to reattach to the seat, then pulled them through the hole. Not an easy job my friend...but by the time i got the seat back on, i was a pro lol should make the next seat a breeze.

 

I think I messed them up so bad initially because of those "international" pictorial instructions SUCKED!!! If it was written in English "just cut out little holes for hog rings, don't make mats too short or narrow" it would have saved me a whole lot of headaches

 

I just did a heated seat install this weekend. The kit I purchased didn't even come with instructions!! Your article was very helpful (especailly the advice on cutting the heating pads) along with others here on TW.

Thanks for posting the good, bad, and ugly bits of your experience!

 

I installed heat in my seats this weekend and had an easier time because of this thread. Thanks for posting your experience and making my install go more smoothly.
--Paul

 

Great Post .... Finished the leather install on my 2011 Double Cab.

Question regarding your heated seat pad cutout ...

Noticed you strayed from the manufacturers instruction regarding one (1) large rectangular cutout as opposed to two (2) smaller cutouts just to clear the hog rings (bottom cushion pad).
My install instructions showed the single large as well, did you find the heat dispersion better in doing this?

As well, also noticed that you left the cut edges bare without sealing with tape .... is this indeed how you left it and if so do you have any problems with it functioning and or shorting out?

Thanks!

 

The kit I got said to cut rectangles for the hog rings. This got me into trouble as I damaged the pad by making them too large... they didn't seem too large when i compared to the instructions... I had the best luck doing the small squares. Moral of the story is you want to minimize cutting.

I only had to take like an 1/8th" off the sides did not seal w tape. Doing so may be seen as lines from under the leather from the tape.

The instructions that came w my kit did not have words. It was some sort of sick joke to do them in 3rd grade pictorials (w warnings) and see if a college educated, somewhat mechanically inclined person could follow them. I failed. The end result after I sorted out my mistakes has been leather and seat heating bliss for the past 12 months and hopefully many more.

Heating evenness / dispersion is dependent on mat surface area (length), so the more it's cut up the more the remaining area will heat. For best results limit cutting them, and try n keep the back and bottoms close to the same length (not exact but within reason) to maximize evenness in heating.