MGB: Heated MGB seats!

Anyone who is taking apart his seats for any reason may want to consider a set of these before reassembly.

http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=350107659117

A jacket is cheaper and more reliable. ;)

yea but heated seats make your bum happy

I doubt I need them in either of the C's or the V8.

Steve S Wrote:

Quote: "
A jacket is cheaper and more reliable.
"

X2 B)

Steve S Wrote:

Quote: "
A jacket is cheaper and more reliable.
"

Says the guy who lives in So Cal. A jacket doesn't help so much when it's 15 degrees with a stiff wind.

I went through LA last winter. 60 degrees on New Year's Day, with a brown, smelly haze in the air.

I could really see this if I drove my 'b in the winter like Carl and the Wiz. Steve, if you've never experienced it, you really can't quite explain the joy of settling your buns, covered by a thin pair of dress pants, down on a vinyl seat at 15 degrees F. Major shrinkage.

The thrill is pretty much the same in a pair of 501 Levis. I wonder how much more of an extended life the seat vinyl will get with the heaters compared to being stressed with use in the cold?
When it gets below zero, I have trouble starting my car.

Well Guys, with the Frgid temps we have in southern middle Tennessee, I added driver's side seat heaters (Cushion & Back) as I replaced the covers recently. The "warm bun" syndrome is great. temps have all ready dropped to 42 degrees. Now before you Freezer guys jump on me, most of you choose where you live. It sure is rough when the temp drops to 17 degrees at nite and only up to 22 during day.
Seriously, they are great for fall and early spring driving. Will be replacing the Hardtop soon, as i drive the B during the winter. The V8 generates heat, but the proper insulation keeps is from the cockpit.
SAFETY FASTER!

Ryan Reis Wrote:

Quote: "
I could really see this if I drove my 'b in the winter like Carl and the Wiz.
"

Strangely enough, I just added these to my watch list. :)

Apologies to purists and the cold blooded creatures who tough out the cold... but I love my heated seats. Drove home last night with the top down. 6 degrees C. which would be about 42 degrees F. Toasty.
Got mine from:
http://www.heatedseats.ca/

Kelly, I really like the color of your B. Is it really Pageant Blue? The color in the Library does not look nearly as nice as yours (It's grainy too)! My B looks a lot like your color and I have always thought that it was a Ford color.

That is why they put in cloth seats in the GTs :)

The cloth is very nice in the dead of winter in the morning darkness.

MudSnow Wrote:

Quote: "Says the guy who lives in So Cal. A jacket doesn't help so much when it's 15 degrees with a stiff wind. I went through LA last winter. 60 degrees on New Year's Day, with a brown, smelly haze in the air."

You may not realize how much weather I've driven through in M.G.s. Just last week I was in the Sierra Nevada Mountains at 6,000-feet in a winter storm. I was driving a 1949 MG TC with the top down.

Just for your education (if you care), the brown haze over eastern Los Angeles is made up primarily of dust blown in from the Mojave Desert. There is smog like any other big city of course, but the haze was there before LA was settled by man. Dust or not, I still won't live there, however. Where I live it gets into the 20's during the winter.

Ryan Reis Wrote:

Quote: "Steve, if you've never experienced it, you really can't quite explain the joy of settling your buns, covered by a thin pair of dress pants, down on a vinyl seat at 15 degrees F. Major shrinkage."

I used to have a sedan with heated seats. It was a joy on a cold evening! But a jacket was still cheaper and more reliable. :)

I have cloth in my GT and at -17 or -25, the seats are also at those temps too! At least initially, it would have been nice on those occasions to have had heated butt warmers!

Steve S Wrote:

Quote: "
the brown haze over eastern Los Angeles is made up primarily of dust blown in from the Mojave Desert.
"

I find that hard to believe, considering the air over the desert is crystal clear and fresh smelling, and the wind in LA is predominantly coming from the opposite direction.

Incorrect. The air over the Mojave Desert is very dusty, especially when it's windy. It is only clear after rains and other certain atmospheric phenomenon or conditions.The Santa Ana winds (the strongest of LA's winds) blow from the north, bringing dust from the deserts over the San Gabriel and San Bernardino Mountains, with the majority coming through the Cajon Pass. This is why the air over San Bernardino is much more "brown" than surrounding areas.

Dust also makes its way south from the Owens Valley, north of Mojave and about 175 miles north of Los Angeles. This valley was once a giant lake and is now completely dry, thanks to engineers draining what water was left to feed larger cities to the south such as LA. When this occurred, terrible dust storms plagued the area for years and violence erupted between government workers and local farmers. Today, the dust has mostly settled (from both scenarios) but much dust still makes its way to the inland areas of LA such as San Bernardino. In 1985, dust blown up from the Owens Valley mixed with rain and splattered itself as white mud over 8,000+ square miles right down to Los Angeles. Hundreds of thousands of homes and cars were covered with the stuff.

As for the "smell" while driving through LA, that was probably a garbage truck!

AAARRRGGGGHHHHH!!!

Wimps and woosses the lot of ya'
Reminds me of the time I picked up a hitchhiker and he wanted the top up.
Couldn't have been more than four inches of snow in the cabin.

(Wanders away muttering darkly to self) Things were different in my day...in my day they didn't even build em with heaters...getting soft that's what's happening.....

Cheers , Pete.

Sorry guys, but my GT will definitely have heated seats when she is redone. My wife's Volvo has heated seats & I use them all the time. In addition to being nice in the winter, they are always nice for a sore back!!!

I really can't say much about the use of seat warmers because I am in the process of installing AC. Different climate, different needs. You should get a couple years use out of that seat warmer until global warming makes them irrelevant. LOL

I got a set for my seats. Have yet to install them, but I figure they will at least bring the air temperature inside the car up. Winters in an MG aren't very warm.

^^^Ouch.

That being said, the kits I bought have a built in temperature sensor that shuts them off if they get over 145�. Granted, this could fail and cause a fire, but so could about 75% of the rest of the parts on the car.

The kits I bought are really well put together. Everything is plug-and-play with only three wires you have to splice, ground, power and switched power. They even came with zip-ties to bundle all the wiring and tap/splices to wire it in. Here is a picture of the whole kit:

Steve S Wrote:

Quote: "
As for the "smell" while driving through LA, that was probably a garbage truck!
"

That must be it.

The air was clear 20 miles east. And 20 miles north. And clear all the way to Phoenix, and all the way up I5. Heck, the air was even clear IN Phoenix. There was no wind, and the whole city (LA) smelled of diesel exhaust the entire time I was there.

Damn garbage truck.

//////////////////////////////////////////////////

That Canadian place is selling their kits on eBay as well, $90 each.

NitroRustlerDriver Wrote:

Quote: "
^^^Ouch.
That being said, the kits I bought have a built in temperature sensor that shuts them off if they get over 145�.
"

I was just being funny showing a "heated seat".

The air was clear 20 miles on all sides of LA? Considering LA is 4,000 square miles, and the air "cleared" 20 miles from each border, that must be some magic smog! LOL!

I drove through LA twice today to go to a car show and home again. The only diesel I smelled were from trucks, including those with garbage in them. I seriously doubt that the entire city does, has or ever will smell like diesel exhaust. If you smelled constant fumes then you may have been staying in the industrial areas to the south. Some of those plants stink!

I can see you have a strong dislike of Los Angeles, but at least be realistic about your gripes with it!

A few photos of drives I've done in the city of Los Angeles, all within the city limits and most within sight of downtown....

When did I ever say I don't like LA? Lots of fun stuff to do there.

Too bad the air stinks though. Guess if you live there, your nose becomes desensitized. And as for who's being realistic, I am not the one claiming LA doesn't have smog.

From Wikipedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smog

Los Angeles Most Polluted US City, According To American Lung Association Report
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/05/070501081737.htm

For what it's worth, San Diego was even dirtier.

Funny thing is that I was going through there dropping off job applications. Makes Oregon look more appealing in comparison.

NitroRustlerDriver Wrote:

Quote: "
^^^Ouch.
That being said, the kits I bought have a built in temperature sensor that shuts them off if they get over 145�. Granted, this could fail and cause a fire, but so could about 75% of the rest of the parts on the car.
The kits I bought are really well put together. Everything is plug-and-play with only three wires you have to splice, ground, power and switched power. They even came with zip-ties to bundle all the wiring and tap/splices to wire it in. Here is a picture of the whole kit:
"

I hope you have a good alternator to power those things. Anytime you have a resistance heating element there will be a power draw. You may want to check out the amperage draw on those so you make sure you alternator will keep up with the power drain. If you also have the electric rear window defroster on your GT you need to add the current draw also because both would most likely be used at the same time.

The advertising says they draw 4 to 5 amps. I have a 90 amp alternator, so have power to spare.

Quote: "When did I ever say I don't like LA? Lots of fun stuff to do there. [/quote]By starting a conversation about LA, and in that post plus all following posts regarding it, saying nothing but negative things about it. That's when you said you don't like LA. :P
[quote]And as for who's being realistic, I am not the one claiming LA doesn't have smog. [/quote]May I ask you to show me where I said LA doesn't have smog? You can search the archives if you like. Before you bother, you might want to re-read the thread, especially the post where I stated "There is smog like any other big city". :eyeroll: I've been to nearly every state multiple times and I can tell you with absolute certainty that each one of them has smog.
[quote]Too bad the air stinks though. Guess if you live there, your nose becomes desensitized."

If I didn't know better I'd say someone was trolling! LOL! Saying that an entire 4,000 square mile city is dirty and smells like diesel exhaust are unrealistic and silly. It's almost as silly as suggesting that the population of a city can't smell the same thing as anyone else. I spend 25% of my time traveling the globe, including traveling in or through Oregon many times. Oregon has plenty of its own problems but like anywhere it also has some wonderful spots. I'm not sure what was said to start your rant about LA (and now moving towards San Diego), but if it was something I said then I'll gladly delete it!

If you want to play the Google game, look at the smog photo ABC News posted for Dallas! ROFL! People will believe anything they read on the interweb machine.

By the way, how do you manage to find the dirtiest, smelliest spots in each city you visit? San Diego has some bad areas like anywhere else, but overall it's a wonderful city with incredibly nice areas to live! :S Been there dozens of times.

I've done the Saturn alternator conversion, so amperage isn't an issue. And on top of that, I'm running a Optima Red Top. The car is very electrically sound.

Seat heater posts and Los Angeles posts. Which will I respond to? :) Both!

1. The seat heater ideas seems like a good one, but you do have to remove the seats from the car, etc., etc. so I imagine most people won't do it. I wouldn't mind having them in my car on a cool day . . . even in Los Angeles.

Segue . . .

2. L.A. is overcrowded, growing so fast it will be almost unlivable in 20 years. Much of the city away from the coastal area is blazing hot in the summer (90's in the "valleys" is common for four to five months at a stretch. September and October can be in the 90s. You better like heat. There are no real seasons here so if you like springtime or cool fall days or snow, forget it. Weatherwise, every day is pretty much like every other. Winter is not that different from spring or fall. The region suffers from perennial water shortages. The freeways are overwhelmed by cars, the commute is among the worst in the country, and the West Side is now so crowded at rush hour it can take up to an hour to go five miles. Much of the city is built out of cheap stucco boxes which makes it look like parts of the Third World. There is almost no public transit system, the bus system makes it almost impossible to go to many parts of the city easily, and the "subway" and trolley system are so limited as to be useless. In fact, the trolley line to the West Side stops over a mile from the airport!
There is no trolley or subway line to any of the city's major universities. You have to own a car to have any mobility here. Many of the rich live in gated communities while the region is inundated with a million or more relatively poor immigrants (many of them illegal). The police are notorious. The city government is mediocre and goes almost unnoticed. That haze (which everyone still calls "smog") brings an endless dusting of windblown dirt down on top of everything. If you park your car outside for the day, it will be covered with grit in a few hours. In fact, the city's most notable feature (besides cars, freeways, and mini-malls) is the brown haze you see as you fly into LAX. The sky can sometimes looks faintly blue but never like the deep blue sky in much of the rest of the country. Even clouds are not common here. It takes water vapor to make a cloud and L.A. doesn't have water vapor. It's a desert. It doesn't rain here for six months at a stretch. I imagine those pictures were taken with a good filter on the lens to get those very atypical shots. A more typical LA day would involve a hazy sky, no blue, no clouds, a blazing sun, stuck in traffic on the freeway next to a guy with his stereo blasting rap music in Spanish. LA, we love it! :)

I'll agree with 93.6% of that! :) East of LA is worse than other areas. West of LA is more like you see in the photos above. The crowds are what ruin a good part of the city, and the warm weather of the area is why there are so many crowds!

Steve S Wrote:

Quote: "
Where I live it gets into the 20's during the winter.
"

Where I live, it gets into the 20's in the summer! :)

NitroRustlerDriver Wrote:

Quote: "
the kits I bought have a built in temperature sensor that shuts them off if they get over 145�. Granted, this could fail and cause a fire, but so could about 75% of the rest of the parts on the car.
The kits I bought are really well put together. Everything is plug-and-play with only three wires you have to splice, ground, power and switched power. They even came with zip-ties to bundle all the wiring and tap/splices to wire it in. Here is a picture of the whole kit:
"

To get the thread back on track :) could you say where you got your kit Andrew? It looks to be much higher quality that the ebay version.

Steve S Wrote:

Quote: "
I'm not sure what was said to start your rant about LA (and now moving towards San Diego)
"

Man, I was there. The city stank, the beaches are covered with garbage and cigarette butts.

The only mystery in this exchange is why you are defending it. Even the American Lung Association says LA is the number one most polluted city in the USA. Perhaps they just have a childhood grudge.

DrewM Wrote:

Quote: "
2. L.A. is overcrowded, growing so fast it will be almost unlivable in 20 years. Much of the city away from the coastal area is blazing hot in the summer (90's in the "valleys" is common for four to five months at a stretch. September and October can be in the 90s. You better like heat. There are no real seasons here so if you like springtime or cool fall days or snow, forget it. Weatherwise, every day is pretty much like every other. Winter is not that different from spring or fall. The region suffers from perennial water shortages. The freeways are overwhelmed by cars, the commute is among the worst in the country, and the West Side is now so crowded at rush hour it can take up to an hour to go five miles. Much of the city is built out of cheap stucco boxes which makes it look like parts of the Third World. There is almost no public transit system, the bus system makes it almost impossible to go to many parts of the city easily, and the "subway" and trolley system are so limited as to be useless. In fact, the trolley line to the West Side stops over a mile from the airport!
There is no trolley or subway line to any of the city's major universities. You have to own a car to have any mobility here. Many of the rich live in gated communities while the region is inundated with a million or more relatively poor immigrants (many of them illegal). The police are notorious. The city government is mediocre and goes almost unnoticed. That haze (which everyone still calls "smog") brings an endless dusting of windblown dirt down on top of everything. If you park your car outside for the day, it will be covered with grit in a few hours. In fact, the city's most notable feature (besides cars, freeways, and mini-malls) is the brown haze you see as you fly into LAX. The sky can sometimes looks faintly blue but never like the deep blue sky in much of the rest of the country. Even clouds are not common here. It takes water vapor to make a cloud and L.A. doesn't have water vapor. It's a desert. It doesn't rain here for six months at a stretch. I imagine those pictures were taken with a good filter on the lens to get those very atypical shots. A more typical LA day would involve a hazy sky, no blue, no clouds, a blazing sun, stuck in traffic on the freeway next to a guy with his stereo blasting rap music in Spanish. LA, we love it!
"

Sounds about like what I saw. There are some awesome jobs that I am interested in there, but I was mildly shocked at the haze and pollution. Hadn't been there since childhood trips to amusement parks. I was there New Year's week to tour a few places and some museums. Temp was in the 60s and the air was calm. Went to the beach and the brown smudge hung out over the ocean for miles.

Oregon beaches are clean and sparkling, but that is largely because this far north, the water is so cold that very few can stand to swim in it.

Here is the manufacturer's own website for those Canadian carbon fibre based seat heaters.

http://www.heatedseatkits.com/heatedseatkits/index.html

They also sell on eBay with the user ID "autowarm".

I got my seat heaters from Moss. They were having their sale where you buy so much stuff and get an item free. I had to buy a TON of parts at the time, so I got one kit free and bought the other. Both ended up being about $63 each. Here they are here:

http://www.mossmotors.com/Shop/ViewProducts.aspx?PlateIndexID=46922

Please read the thread. Yet again, I have never said LA doesn't have smog, pollution or any other problems. In fact I said they DO exist. Why do I defend against your continued statements? Out of common courtesy. So long as anyone makes up or exaggerates facts about a city and/or the people in it, I'll contradict them. The people who live in Los Angeles and the surrounding areas (including many on this forum) surely don't like it any more than anyone else would. Considering the statements you've made, it's of little wonder why you were met with resistance! LA is a polluted city as are many. But making statements like the entire thing is filthy and stinks are so absurd that I just can't understand them.

More LA facts, for the incredibly bored people out there!

Regarding smog: In the early 1980's the city and many areas in the vicinity had horrible problems, with Stage 1, 2 and 3 alerts being regular occurrences. When new vehicle emissions laws were passed, most people laughed at them, saying they would never make a difference. They all ate their words ten years later as Smog alerts became a thing of the past. The air today is immensely cleaner, and the rest of the country's is as well, (can't believe I'm saying this) thanks to California's governing bodies. (That was painful to write!).

Today, you will find visible smog on hot days with still air, which are the same conditions that bring smog to most major cities.But the fact remains that the brown "haze" visible over the eastern areas of LA city and county are natural occurrences, brought in by dust from the deserts just over the mountains to the north. There can be (and usually is) smog in addition to the haze, but if man were to disappear overnight, the brown tint would remain.

Now, considering that the inversion layer is often between 4 and 6,000-feet, and that the mountains are 5,000 to 10,000 feet high, the trained eye should easily be able to detect when there is visible smog and when there is not by the appearance of a layer (for lack of a better term) of smog within the natural haze.

"Man, I was there." - Yeah, me too. For over 30 years! LOL! :bouncing: And today the wind is once again blowing from the north!

Oh yeah, I still loved my heated seats for the time I had them, and a jacket is still cheaper and more reliable. :I3:

Didn't make up or exaggerate anything. Guess it's all just a matter of relative perspective. Or maybe you get used to it after 30 years.

More likely you get used to exaggerating after 30 years than getting used to the smell of diesel fumes. I was trying to help by offering some education on the environment and pollution, but I didn't realize how stubborn you would be about your limited perception of a small piece of a major area. If you actually believe everything you wrote as hard fact, then I guess there's no reason to further my attempts to help you learn about the area.

To get back on track, good luck with the seats and make sure you ground and insulate everything very well. There have been enough reports of fires caused by seat heaters over the years that I would keep it in mind while installing them. More than likely it will never be a problem, but best to be aware of it!

Or maybe 'common knowledge', which may or may not be correct, colors one's perceptions.

I lived there (OC) from '82-'04, and may soon return. Never had a problem. The number and severity of smog alerts decreased during my time there. During the same time, what constituted a smog alert changed.

Like anywhere else, until you've lived there, it's unwise to comment on local features.

As far as pristiine beaches, I lived on Portland and Corvallis for 27 years and feel qualified to comment intelligently. I remember the 60's and early 70's when butts and beer cans were common on Oregon beaches. Turn the heat up 20 degrees and move the population of Portland into a 20 mile stretch of beach, and see how clean the beaches remain.

On topic, when it's 60 degrees and sunny outside, there is little need for more than a light jacket, your seats are pre-heated; and it doesn't require an alternator change to support the increased current demand

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