I found this 128,000 mile '98 ivory pearlescent base with blown airbags. Since my defunct '94 had the coil springs conversion featuring Eibach springs and Koni shocks, I bought it with a clean Carfax but without roadtesting (engine started and sounded fine) and crossed my fingers.
The car has the usual dings and minor damage to the paint, but overall it still looks presentable with no rust anywhere and cleaned up nicely. The vanilla interior is a little worse for wear, though the leather has not worn through anywhere, it looks like it needs a recoat to hide stains and other signs of abuse. The headliner is shot and coming apart, the carpet is dirty-looking despite the mocha color and some of the buttons on the door panels need fixing, though everything seems to work except for the driver's seat.
The memory function tries to move the seat backwards or forwards but all you hear are gears turning with no movement and then it quits. Trying it out, it does not move fore or aft, with the same noise. I looked for a wedged coin and found some loose change and a pocket knife, but removing them did not free the track.
I have both the '94 and '98 driver's seat out for comparison. I may try to swap motors if I can figure out if this is even possible. The wiring does not look identical so swapping tracks doesn't look easy either.
I did drive the car around the block and it seems to run well with power comparable to the '94, but the transmission shifts softer - probably never modified. The suspension change-over was more work than I anticipated, as I ended up replacing both upper control arms and one sway bar end link because they were all shot. The rest of the front suspension will need a refresh soon.
I'll report more once I get the seat fixed or just back in for now. I'm studying the '94 factory repair manual trying to figure this seat track thing out...
The car has the usual dings and minor damage to the paint, but overall it still looks presentable with no rust anywhere and cleaned up nicely. The vanilla interior is a little worse for wear, though the leather has not worn through anywhere, it looks like it needs a recoat to hide stains and other signs of abuse. The headliner is shot and coming apart, the carpet is dirty-looking despite the mocha color and some of the buttons on the door panels need fixing, though everything seems to work except for the driver's seat.
The memory function tries to move the seat backwards or forwards but all you hear are gears turning with no movement and then it quits. Trying it out, it does not move fore or aft, with the same noise. I looked for a wedged coin and found some loose change and a pocket knife, but removing them did not free the track.
I have both the '94 and '98 driver's seat out for comparison. I may try to swap motors if I can figure out if this is even possible. The wiring does not look identical so swapping tracks doesn't look easy either.
I did drive the car around the block and it seems to run well with power comparable to the '94, but the transmission shifts softer - probably never modified. The suspension change-over was more work than I anticipated, as I ended up replacing both upper control arms and one sway bar end link because they were all shot. The rest of the front suspension will need a refresh soon.
I'll report more once I get the seat fixed or just back in for now. I'm studying the '94 factory repair manual trying to figure this seat track thing out...
