Yesterday I started the day full of hope and planning to remove the driver's seat. As per recommendation I Q20'd a small can on it and kicked it from behind while my son sat on the seat and held up the lever between the chair base and the door. I kicked it again. I told my son to get out and i pulled it. It moved about a centimeter. This was when I noticed that there is a failsafe stop (for lack of a better word) on the "tube" (tube explained later). It is like an "L" shaped piece of flat steel (turned 90deg clockwise), when bent upwards, it faces towards the back of the car, with the L bit facing towards the floor. So when you try to push the seat forward, the channel slams into it, thereby preventing the chair sliding forward. Fortunately my timeous detection of this built-in "Accidentally Slide Forward" failsafe system prevented me from having to replace that as well. You just push it into a hole and the chair slides forward, past it, but not yet all the way out. So, son back on seat, kick it, son off seat, pull it etc etc. Eventually it moved all the way back! Now, if I kicked it from behind it had to go all the way forward, NOT.
This mechanism of the "chair sliding",.... I will try to explain using my limited terminolgy since I am not yet fluent in VW speak.
"Now you see, the seat is attached to a base which slides forward and backward. This base slides because... attached to the base is a channel wich, kind of, folds over a tube. The tube is attached to the body of the car. Actually there are two tubes, one on the left and one on the right, and both of them have channels (attached to the chair base) sliding on/over them".
"Inside the tube, there seems to be rod with a nut on the end. Only, the nut looks like it has a bowler hat on. These nuts are on either side of the bolt which protrudes on the front and the back of the tube. These nuts both broke off which brings me to my next point."
"To see what is inside the tube is not possible unless your head is flat enough to fit snug against the elevated centre (console) of the pan or floorboard of the car."
"The only reason one would like to be able to look inside this tube would be to see if there might be something (like the rest of what was attached to the nuts) that prevents the chair from sliding out, which brings me to my next point."
"There is also a piece of plastic between the channel and the tube. I'm not sure which one it should be attached to (channel or tube) but when it breaks it inhibits movement/sliding of the chair. When it disintegrates, it is even more dificult to decide where it should / should have fit or where it's parts may be lost within this system."
This is my simple sketch from memory of how the system works. Oh yes, I also noticed some springs, towards the back of the seat, sliding in the tube.
Since the chair was now stuck in the "As far back as possible" position, I decided to work on the fusebox. Aahhh, Nostalgia. As I'm sure many members of this forum are familiar with ceramic fuses with little strips of lead over them, I'm sure I'll be excused if I replace these with a more modern version. I also tracked down a company which manufactures Auto electrical wire but they cannot supply directly to the public. Being a self employed trader at one time didn't help either. She did however refer me to an outlet and the lady who answered the phone took down the colours and thicknesses of the wire over the phone untill I asked if it wouldn't be simpler for me to just e-mail th wiring diagram and she could check availabilty for me. She said she'll call back. I'll call tomorrow.
And on a lighter side, I paid VdBrink's a visit last week Monday and found this.... it holds the right rear reflector, dunno it' scientific name.
