Does anyone know how hard it would be to swap in SE power seats on a non power seat GXE? Also if I wanted to keep my GXE upholstery, is that possible, are the cushions the same?

 

potentially easy. Depends on if your particular car has the wiring there already or not. Some are prewired, others aren't.
cushions are the same.

 

If its not prewired I would just run the power wire to something that has power all the time and ground the ground wire out on the seat to frame bolt.
Thats what I did on my dad's E-150 work truck when he had me put power seats in it from a conversion van.

 

Pretty sure All (if not most) 3rd gens are pre-wired, I've seen a few exceptions, but most are wired. I got some power seat frames, trim, electrical components and buttons sent to me and I took the manual frames off of my Velour seats and swapped over the power seat frames to them and they work flawlessly.

Some things I can say to watch out for though:

Put down a huge blanket where you'll be working and keep your hands clean, nothing like smudging up your (cloth) seat when you're trying to make them better.

Have a helper, when you have to bend the tab that goes into the upright part of the seat for the back adjuster you'll need one person to hold it where it's supposed to go, and another to screw it in.... Have the seat in it's fully most reclined position if at all possible.

Test (and ground) the power seat frames before you install them on your seats apparently.

http://indiextronic.myftp.org/Uploads/powerseats/

 

Wow pearl93ve thats an awesome swap! If I get the entire seat from an SE I wont need any other parts then right? Looks awesome!

 

it's all one unit... but they're even rarer than that. it wasn't standard equipment on anything (though i can't remember if it was SE-only or if GXEs could have it too...). Then you have to find your color. But i've heard that you can swap your properly-colored parts onto the power frame. if you need the right trim pieces after you get everything swapped around the outer finisher is like $20 per side on courtesynissan's site, if it's REALLY that important to you one way or the other.

 

I happen to know someone parting out an SE who has power seats with trashed leather cushions in the right finish color

 

i just want to put this on the record... i hate you

none of mine have power seats (2x89SE and 1x90GXE). but that's OK b/c i'm doing a full interior swap later in life. i will keep this interior until i'm finished doing all the 'greasy tasks', and once i do that, i'll put in a nice interior since i won't be doing anything but regular maintainence once all the repairs and mods are done.

 

Eh...dont hate me, my wife declared we will not be spending ANY money on this car unless its to fix something thats broke. So basically, unless the guy lets me have em before it goes to the scrap yard, I'm not getting power seats.

 

remind him that the junk yard pays the same, with or without the seat mounts, so he doesnt lose anything, giving you the mounts. it may also be in your interest to grab the electric harness off the car for the motors, just in case yours doesnt have them.