Leather

[robertsmart]

Morning chaps.

I am moving to France in January, and am taking my series 2 VSX XM. I am over here now without the car to find accomodation etc, boring stuff.

Anyway, I went to the local breakers yard to get some LHD headlamps, got them no problem, and went into their yard to try and find an electronic armrest. Success I found one in a Series 1 Exclusive with the nice maple wood.

The car has a nice black leather interior that I would be interested in buying and fitting to my own.

A few questions: The car has heated seats, how would one go about tapping into a supply for these, is there likely to be a plug under the carpet for this?

Also regarding the carpet, I imagine a lhd carpet would fit into a rhd car with no problem, I'm mainly concerned about the drivers side round the pedals.

Front door cards, are they easy to modify so that I can transfer the leather from the series 1 cards to the series 2 cards, and still keep the nice maple wood?

Also if there is anything that you guys may need, and can't find in the UK, send me a PM, and I'll enquire about availability, costs, and postage.

Thanks in advance.

Robert

[xmexclusive]

Hi Robert

The XM carpet has a large plastic insert for the drivers footwell and a few other handed peculiarities. I would not recommend re-fitting an XM with the wrong hand carpet as it is also preshaped to the floor contours which are very different in each footwell. Carpets are just a little more difficult to swap than the rest of the seats and trim. The problem area is under the heater box as the carpet is put in before anything else. Careful trimming with a carpet blade in a stanley knife can solve this but I prefer to do it by taking everything out. I have made leather/wood Mk2 door panels from recovered scrap Mk1 SEi panels. Quite a tedious job as the plastic wood needs cutting shorter to fit and the leather panels have to be stripped then reshaped with extra holes for the wood fixings. The leather then needs trimming to size and refitting. Now I know how to do the job I guess a panel would take 3 or 4 hours. Just in case someone wants to go the otherway and retrim Mk1 panels with Mk2 bits the Mk2 panel is smaller and the wood shorter so it will not work.
The heated seats follow the same Citroen make it difficult pattern. There was a major design change between Mk1 and Mk2. The wiring is totally different, control components as well as type of electrical plugs with even the heating elements different. Mk1 ones are glued to the cushions and very difficult to get at to repair the enevitable broken wires in the seat creases. On the Mk2's the heated seat wiring was not completely fitted even on Exclusives unless the car actually got heated seats. To put in missing wiring requires you to remove the seats and lift the carpet. On VSX's and Exclusives (not sure about SX's) the heated seat wiring is included from the fuse box to some plugs below the back of the radio. The next bit of loom goes to the front seats and the door pillars by the rear footwell. This loom may have electric arm rest wiring as well as it was a more common fitting than heated seats. This loom only has heated seat wiring included on All Mk2 Exclusives and those few VSX's with factory heated seats fitted. The final two looms to the rear heated seats were only fitted to Mk2's with heated seats. These looms have a heating control box. I have been looking for these latter items for a few years now and still need to find a couple of sets.
On front seats drivers and passenger seats are very different and not interchangable so you would have to drive using the much less adjustable passenger seat if you fit LHD ones. Seat belt protection design changed with the Mk2 as well.

John

This post has been edited by xmexclusive on December 14, 2008 12:06 pm

[robertsmart]

Thanks John,

I was thinking that the grey carpet would look a bit odd with the black leather seats and black door cards. But I have black rubber mats down, so very little of it is on view. At least not having to change the carpet makes things a lot easier.

I had forgot about the height adjuster for the drivers seat, thankfully its something I don't use, so I could live without it.

Thankfully the rear door cards are interchangeable, and need no adjustment. In a sad way I would enjoy modifying the front door cards.

The heated seats seems to be much more hassle than its worth, and the heater elements are probably broken any way.

[lez]

the leather panels on mk1 and mk2 door cards are a different shape also.

[citroenxm]

Xmxec and Robert,

How about swapping the RHD Seat RUNNERS over onto the LHD seats, certainly the cusions are the same, the only thing that would be different would be the lumber adjuster...??

Paul

[xmexclusive]

Hi Les

It is only the corners of the panel that are different and the centre core is just a sheet of hardboard so the corners are easily trimmed to Mk2 shape.

Hi Citroenxm

Need to think about that and check if the seat to base frame fixing is symetrical to make it work. A few of the passenger seat backs that I have stripped were pre punched with the holes for the lumbar adjuster.

John

This post has been edited by xmexclusive on December 15, 2008 12:50 am

[colinxm]

The seat frames are asymetrical so it just won't work, I had to do without height adjustment for over a year until i managed to source a leather driver's seat over here (i had installed the leather seats from my old uk spec car into my newer lhd car) so now both driver and passenger have height adjustment. Stupidly i threw away the lhd car's original cloth door cards so now I have series 1 cards in a series 2 car... not pretty - I never thought to re-trim, doh !
Anyone got a cheapo set of series 2 front door cards they wouldn't mind bunging in the post ?

Colin.P

[citroenxm]

Yes I have, still on the doors! Seriously! (Im in the uk by the way)

Welcome to collect in person

Paul

[lez]

if the original frames are intact ten just swap foam and leather, i have done that before when a frame snapped

[colinxm]

Thanks Paul, if only i could

Colin.P