Hi All,
So I have finished the install of heated seats in my 97 L just as the weather got cold. Here is how it's done in words, no pictures because I'm lame and forgot to take any.
There is no wiring in a 97 L sedan for the heated seats and switches, so this involves some electrical work.
Part 1:
First acquire some heated seats, switches, a relay, and an under seat wiring harness.
I went to a u-pull-it and found an Outback with the winter package and cloth seats that I was able to remove. (A note about removing seats: most likely 3 bolts will come right out. The 2 in front and the outside one in back. The two in back on the hump are more trouble. The top one might come out with some PB Blaster and a breaker bar to get it moving but the bottom one almost definitely won't. On my car I ended up breaking the welds on the nut behind that bolt trying to take my seats out. You will find that nut exposed under a heat shield under the car. Where the bolts are all 14mm, that nut is 17 mm and you can get a wrench on it and hit it with some PB Blaster as well and given some time work that bolt out.) I disassembled the seats in the yard to get the heater elements. Take a big pair of electricians needle nose pliers with you as you will need to remove the seat covers which are held on by hog rings. A hog ring is a bent metal wire used to close sausage, build fences, and hold upholstery on to seats. You will find that there are a bottom and top heater element. Make a note of which element came from where as I didn't and had to move a back element when things did not line up.
If you like the seats, you could just buy the seats and save yourself some trouble, but I had installed a leather interior from a GT in the spring and wanted to heat them.
The heater elements look like a big piece of felt with a wire coming out of it, kinda like an electric blanket, so if you go for the quick and dirty removal method and use a knife to cut them out, the felt thing is the important part, not some padding like I thought as I started to disassemble the seats.
The passenger side, larger is for the seat bottom, smaller the seat back. You can't see it on the bottom piece but there is some exposed wire that should be on the bottom side.
I checked the resistance of the elements with a meter when I got them home to make sure they were good (probably should do that in the yard before taking them out of the seats, might save you some work later) and tossed them in the washing machine to clean them up some. I then hung them up to dry.
Oh, the guy in the yard thought I was nuts when I came out with these 4 pieces of felt, had never seen that done before, and he looked like he had been there for quite awhile.
Now that the seats are out of the car, you can get get to the wiring harness under the rug. The harness runs to the passenger footwell so pop off the passenger side door sill, and the plastic piece under there to expose the wiring harness.
Make a judgement call on the quality of the carpet. I judged crap and went at it with a utility knife and cut it open to get the harness out. You need to pull the center console as well. Take the panel with switches with you. There are 2 connectors under the drivers seat, 1 heater and 1 seatbelt. There are 3 connectors near the gear shift that you need to separate. There is one connector at the parking brake, 2 connectors for the seat heater switches, and one connector for the passenger seat heater. Under the passenger seat is also a ground point, unscrew that as well. Under the kick panel are 3 large connectors, separate them. The Outback harness continues down the side of the car to the back somewhere, cut that part off or spend days trying to remove it.
Above the connectors in the kick panel will be a relay with a pink connector. Take that relay, connector, and as much wire as you can since you won't have that in your car, unless you have rear accessory power in a wagon.
Next up, how to strip and prep a wiring harness.
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