Seat and Center Console Upgrade

[quietpeen]

Well if it wasn’t foreshadowing, After replacing my door panels to the upgraded door panels becuase I’m not fond of the red accents on the interior, it only makes sense that I was going to replace the seats and center console. I finally pulled the trigger on a set of TRX Level 1 seats. So far I have the rear seats installed. I plan to get the rest installed by the end of this weekend. For anybody with a level 1 these pictures won’t be all that impressive, but anybody with a base model might appreciate it.

On a side note all my research shows that level one doesn’t have heated rear seats, but these seats have harnesses and modules that make me believe that they are heated. However there is no buttons on the rear of the center console to turn them on. I was not expecting heated rear seats so for now even if they are I won’t worry about that function. I want heated front seats and heated steering wheel.

Removal of the stock rear seats is very easy. Driver side there are 2 18mm bolts in the back and 2 E-12 bolts in the front. The Passenger side there are the same 2 rear 18mm bolts and 2 front E-12 bots in the front but also and additional 18 mm bolt toward the back for the seat belt.

Install was practically just as easy. I torqued the back 18mm bolts to 63 ft. Lbs. (based off research that I found on 4th gens because I couldn’t find info on 5th gens.). For the front bolts I just went till it was hard to go any further with a 3/8” ratchet.

Here are the pics. The 2nd pic more shows how the seats tie into the past addition of the door panels.

 

[OnTheReel]

Looks great, the transformation is almost complete! Weird that the rear seats have plugs…

 

[quietpeen]

I forgot to post pictures but when I bought these it also came with 2 of the 3 the dash trim pieces and all 4 grab a handles.

I have only installed the front two grab handles so far.

And here are the two dash trim pieces or bezels. the one I'm missing is the one for the headlight switch.

 

[OnTheReel]

Looking nice. Wonder how much of a nightmare it would be to swap to the leather dash pad.

It still looks good as it is, but that’s really all that’ll be left of the old interior!

 

[quietpeen]

Yea i don’t know how hard it would be to swap that. It might be hard to find that also

 

[quietpeen]

This evening I pulled the front seats just to save some time this weekend. I’m not going too far yet in case I need the truck to go get something tomorrow morning. Once I pull the center console I’m dead in the water till the reinstall.

 

[quietpeen]

Got this done today. To me it looks so much better. The base model seats are actually nice for cloth and vinyl, but all that red was too much for me. The leather seats are very comfortable and I now have 8 way powered passenger seat along with heated seats(once I turn that feature on)

this morning I started with the B Pilar grab handles. Overall that is not too hard. You have to take the cover off the shoulder adjustment exposing the 14mm nut and take that off. Pic below

Then pop the covers on the grab handle exposing two 10 mm bolts and take them out. Pic below

Start pulling straight out on the lower trim piece popping clips then there is 1 clip holding the grable handle in. here is the upgraded grab handle

 

[quietpeen]

Swapping the center console is pretty straight forward. 6 10mm bolts holding it in and two plugs in the front. Putting the front seats back in I used blue thread locker on the bolts and torqued the rear to 30 ft. Lbs and then the front to 21 ft. Lbs. because that is what I found on the internet for the 4th gens but couldn’t find anything for the 5th gens. Also for the fronts, I just didn’t feel 21 was enough so I tightened them till they wouldn’t move anymore without a lot of force and risk of stripping the bolt head.

 

[OnTheReel]

Great work! You plan to sell all the old stuff?

 

[quietpeen]

Great work! You plan to sell all the old stuff?

I plan to but really hope to not have to try to ship. I’m thinking there is someone out there with a tradesman that would like an interior upgrade

 

[OnTheReel]

Yeah, I mean the red is love it or hate it, but I think someone with a boring Tradesman or Big Horn would be all over that setup. Especially if they got some miles on theirs and the original stuff is getting tired looking.

 

[quietpeen]

Or if they would like to make a column shifter and paddles work on their truck

 

[quietpeen]

With all the parts I had there was still one thing I had to do to make it mine. I needed to swap the TRX plates with the vin on top of console lid. Its not as straight forward as you would think Because a threaded stud with a nut and washer would be too easy. The plate itself has 3 posts and is held on with pressed on internal teeth washers That are also glued down.

To get to those three pressed on washers you first have to take the plastic liner off the inside of the console lid. then there are 4 screws holding on the handle/latch assembly that has to come off. This would be very hard to do while it’s still attached in the truck so then there are 5 more screws that hold the console lid to the hinge plate. Once i had it indoors in the air conditioning and under good lights I started to working on removing the internal teeth washers. I used my dremel with a grinding disk And just kept working my way around removing the teeth. Once i got enough gone with the dremel I was able to pull them off with a small pair of needle nose pliars.

for anybody that might think to drill out the rivet and pop rivet back on, I’m not sure that would work. Here is what the back side looks like.

For fastening it again after getting them off, I went to amazon and searched for star lock washers and found a mixed pack of 9 different sizes because I didn’t know which size i would need. The bags were not labeled so i still don’t know what size it is, but one of them worked. Pressing them on wasn’t too bad, I found a socket that was the same size and just pushed till they went on(the heel of my palm is going to be sore for a few days )

 

[OnTheReel]

I was wondering how that was gonna go. The wrong VIN on the center console would drive me nuts. Happy you were able to swap them over.

 

[quietpeen]

I was wondering how that was gonna go. The wrong VIN on the center console would drive me nuts. Happy you were able to swap them over.

Yea I couldn’t have that, and for some reason the truck this center console came off of the other info wasn’t on it. Just the vin.

 

[skorpiun]

Hey guys...... how do you change the shifter from the dial to the center console?

 

[quietpeen]

Hey guys...... how do you change the shifter from the dial to the center console?

I don't think anybody on here will know how to do that since our trucks came with the center console shifter.

 

[cwood08]

Were you able to activate the ventilated and heated seats in the front? If so how did you do it? Was all the wiring there and just plug and play?

 

[quietpeen]

Were you able to activate the ventilated and heated seats in the front? If so how did you do it? Was all the wiring there and just plug and play?

these seats coming from a level 1 TRX do not have the ventilated function so I could not activate that. Yes I was able to get the heated steering wheel and heated seats working(that is the good news). Bad news is that the wiring was not there. I had to make my own harness and pin them into the connectors. On my truck the IP harness had all the wires, but the body harness did not.

 

[chillashobbes]

Nice work on the upgrade! I'm curious, did you notice any significant difference in comfort between the base model seats and the TRX Level 1 seats?