Cooled seats in a buggy......

gottagofast · May 30, 2016

Soooo I recently rode in a coworker's shiny new (almost 20 years newer than mine) dually...

Pushed the little blue button and WHOA nice cold air for the back and hiney.... NICE!

Got me to thinkin... The donor for my zuk buggy is a grand vitara w A/C and what if I hooked the seats up to air conditioning.... Ditch most of the stock plenum n just mount enough for a heater core and A/C evaporator in the back along with a fan for each seat... Maybe boat bilge blowers....

Could be sitting there on a 100 degree day waiting for some bozo to try for the eleventy ninth time to get his four runner over that one rock n clear the trail and maybe not hover on the edge of heat stroke.....

Anyone done it?

bad80cj · May 30, 2016

i have thought about it as you have. Never committed

paradisepwoffrd · May 30, 2016

Re:

I have thought about this also. Would need cloth seats. I think some of the systems are simply a small fan blowing up into the seat

muddinmetal · May 30, 2016

Re:

paradisepwoffrd said:
I have thought about this also. Would need cloth seats. I think some of the systems are simply a small fan blowing up into the seat

Everyone I have ever seen is just a fan, no ac

Eddyj · May 30, 2016

Mine in my truck are leather and have Ac. I haven't looked into it yet but one works and one doesn't. When I look into it I'll let you know what I find.

pholmann · May 30, 2016

My f350 has em. They are nice. Mine are leather. The misses wants heated so that's what I'm going with.

MoparMan · May 30, 2016

Re:

muddinmetal said:
Everyone I have ever seen is just a fan, no ac

Yep, mine are just little fans under the seat.....it just happens to pick up the cool air from the ac that is in the cabin.

As pholmann said, mine are leather too....they just have larger than normal perforated holes to allow it to blow through. Wish every vehicle I own had them...would be really nice in an off-road rig.

paradisepwoffrd · May 30, 2016

Re: Re:

MoparMan said:
Yep, mine are just little fans under the seat.....it just happens to pick up the cool air from the ac that is in the cabin.

As pholmann said, mine are leather too....they just have larger than normal perforated holes to allow it to blow through. Wish every vehicle I own had them...would be really nice in an off-road rig.

I believe most factory vehicles are perforated leather with these options. Vinyl suspension seats wouldn't work, but ones with cloth inserts would work well.

Biggest thing about suspension seats would be allowing the seat travel. Would need to build a shroud with the fan hanging down where the seat could move inside the shroud. Not impossible but needs some thought.

paradisepwoffrd · May 30, 2016

Re: Re: Cooled seats in a buggy......

pholmann said:
My f350 has em. They are nice. Mine are leather. The misses wants heated so that's what I'm going with.

You could easily have both. 2 completely different systems.

kmcminn · May 30, 2016

My Chevrolet has cooled seats. The seats cooling system is just a fan that puts air through the seat onto your back.

gottagofast · May 30, 2016

Many of the new vehicles use peletier coils where electric current heats one side and cools the other... One has a fan blowing into the seat and the other into the cabin.... By reversing polarity to the coils you swap the hot and cool sides....

What I am proposing however is a remote plenum with the factory heater core and evaporator and flexible hoses plumbed into the seat....

Seems like it should work well as long as the right fans are used for correct airflow.

TBItoy · May 30, 2016

Re:

Ha I was just talking about this today, my PRPs have the mud screen in the bottom of the seat, so there is enough ventilation to keep ass sweat to a minimum. I was thinking of picking up some 12v enclosure fans and mounting them underneath

grcthird · May 31, 2016

As far as heated seats go, the elements dorman makes for the gm trucks would be the way to go, way easier to run a few wires and some switches than extra coolant lines and ducts.

TBItoy · May 31, 2016

grcthird said:
As far as heated seats go, the elements dorman makes for the gm trucks would be the way to go, way easier to run a few wires and some switches than extra coolant lines and ducts.

Here are the kits that are in my wife's 4runner.

http://www.amazon.com/Dorman-628-040-Universal-Seat-Heater/dp/B002U6IL9O/ref=sr_1_1?s=automotive&ie=UTF8&qid=1464702073&sr=1-1&keywords=dorman+seat+heater+kit

after 2 years only one of the elements is still working. Not sure what's up with that, but I'm going to dig into it one day.

The heated seats in my 2500 chevy quit working after about 6-7 years also. They just randomly click on and off, most likely a controller issue or a short. I just unplugged the heater under the driver seat but now neither side works.

I love heated leather seats... when they work! laughing1

grcthird · May 31, 2016

As cheap as they are, they would be good for a buggy that isn't going to be used like a dd, and even on the Chevy trucks they are very easy to replace, so it kinda justifies using a cheap part. I think the last one I did got the pig tails cut off the old elements and the new elements laid over the cushion since the factory ones are glued to the cushions. Hardest part is picking that heavy seat up and taking it out of the truck.

gottagofast · May 31, 2016

Yeah that would be easy and cheap BUT the main goal here is cooling...heat is just a little bonus.... My arctic carhartts keep me quite toasty.

84mallcrawl · Jun 1, 2016

http://www.surpluscenter.com/Electrical/Blowers-Fans/DC-Centrifugal-Blowers/32-CFM-12-VDC-BLOWER-16-1455.axd

mount one of these to the base of the seat and a little duct between the back and bottom of the seat. . . . . I bet it would work pretty fair and under $10 might be worth a try

gottagofast · Jun 1, 2016

Interesting... Thx... Hadn't considered looking for squirrel cage blowers... Could probably mount em to my A/C plenum and use flexible hose from them to the seats

I also have an asthmatic friend who could benefit from cool filtered air piped into a helmet... Darth Vader style

The Luke · Jun 1, 2016

I'm willing I to try the fan. Not even going to lie. I was sweating my balls off last weekend at gmp.

paradisepwoffrd · Jun 1, 2016

Re:

Something like this moves more air than the squirrel cage fan: http://www.surpluscenter.com/Electrical/Blowers-Fans/DC-Fans/151-CFM-12-VDC-FAN-19-2-WATTS-16-1520.axd