This is what you need, Lotus part numbers and prices excl. VAT
A116U0190 BRACKET-LUMBAR SUPPORT £2
A089V6142F PUMP & VALVE ASSY £16
B111V0117F LUMBAR SUPPORT-INFLATABLE £19
You also need
At least 0,25 liters of high quality contact Adhesive
A pair of working gloves, to keep the glue from getting onto your hands (pretty unhealthy stuff)
A well ventilated working area, to stop the adhesive solvent from dissolving your brain (Methylethylketone will do just that)
A roll of masking tape, to mask off the leather that's not supposed to have glue all over it (lesson learned)
1. Take the seat out of the car
2. Carefully loosen the center leather along both sides, like shown in picture below.
The foam pad is the green bit obviously
3. Annihilate the foam pad. I found no easy way doing this, it comes out piece by piece and after half an hour there is nothing left. I used a knife to scrape the glue off the seat shell. I found it useful to use a vacuum cleaner to get all the foam and glue out of the seat, once done with the scraping.
4. Time to install the rubber bladder to the seat. You need to drill a 6.5mm hole for the hose, look at the inside of the seat shell and you will see where the hole needs to be. Drill the hole to the LH side of the seat or the pump and valve assy will foul the cup holder. The hose is supposed to be at the lower end of the bladder, so you will inflate the section that used to have the foam bit behind it.
5. Now this is the tricky part, I did this three times before I got it right. Glue the inside EDGE of the rubber bladder to the seat, making sure it sits perfectly straight. The bladder goes directly onto the seat so you need to loosen the side leather to get it in there. Once you have it lined upp the right way, you can glue the rest of the back of the bladder in place. Again glue the bladder directly onto the seat shell, loosen the leather on the RH side of the seat to do so.
If you try to glue all of the bladder in place at the same time, it will most probably stick to the seat before you get it in place and you will need to start all over again. This happened to me twice before I gave up and did it in two steps.
6. Glue the leather back in place
Try to get as much of the old glue off the seat and leather as your patience allows. I found it easier to glue sections of the seat back together, than trying to do it all at once.
Job done! This took me about three hours and well worth it. Now owning a VX220 Turbo with the luxury of inflatable lumbar supports on both seats
Edited by IvarS, 03 August 2010 - 12:17 PM.
