No seat movement

Hi folks! You know, when I got my 98 it came with the 2nd edition factory service manuals.
Now, I am no stranger to factory service manuals but, me and these manuals have not been coming to an understanding. There is NOTHING like hands-on experience! And to me these books are for reference. Holy crap! Come on! Sentences like: "Refer to the appropriate symptom
diagnostic table for the applicable abnormal result" WTF DOES THAT MEAN?????
Excuse me, the damned thing won't work! Now, how do I fix it????

Whew! Wow. Now, does anyone out there in the REAL world know where the fuse is for the front seats is located? Or, most importantly, how do I make it/ them work?

Please excuse me for sounding dumb or retarded. Maybe one of these days a light will come on and these books will actually "tell me something".

1998 Riviera SC. Putting on new struts, rear shocks, a/c compressor with the other parts needed, and maybe getting the seats to move. Thanks.

Hukmut wrote:

Hi folks!   You know, when I got my 98 it came with the 2nd edition factory service manuals.
Now, I am no stranger to factory service manuals but, me and these manuals have not been coming to an understanding. There is NOTHING like hands-on experience! And to me these books are for reference. Holy crap! Come on! Sentences like: "Refer to the appropriate symptom
diagnostic table for the applicable abnormal result" WTF DOES THAT MEAN?????
Excuse me, the damned thing won't work! Now, how do I fix it????

Whew! Wow. Now, does anyone out there in the REAL world know where the fuse is for the front seats is located? Or, most importantly, how do I make it/ them work?  

Please excuse me for sounding dumb or retarded. Maybe one of these days a light will come on and these books will actually "tell me something".

1998 Riviera SC. Putting on new struts, rear shocks, a/c compressor with the other parts needed, and maybe getting the seats to move. Thanks.

There is no fuse for the front seats; it's a thermal breaker. Most likely if you remove the rear seat bolster (the part on the floor) and check the fuse panels under there, you'll likely find that one of the silver mini-boxes is hot to the touch. The silver things are thermal breakers. Most likely there is a wire under the seat frame that chafed off its insulation and is in contact with the frame; pull out the hot thermal breaker then get a flashlight and look under the seat that won't move in order to find the wires. You likely will be able to get the seat to work by getting the wires off the seat frame but if nothing is otherwise broken or burned out then you will have to repair them in order for the seat to work right in the long run.

You don't sound dumb.... you're probably just ISFJ or INFJ (Myers-Briggs personality types), you prefer not to use an unfamiliar approach to learning new things, and you are assuming that someone on this forum has done what you need to do and can just tell you.

No, ISTP. Just some guy who has seats that don't work.

Did you find the thermal breakers yet?

Got bigger fish to fry...
Now it will not start. Always something. Starter growled this a.m. and started but it growled and almost started a second time. Now nothing. Might not have been the starter growling, but the sound deadening material made it sound like the starter. I will fix it.

battery could be run down from the short under the seat.

No. Just a bad starter. I think that the seat nonoperating is due to no voltage to the seat controls.
Probably due to corrosion.
I will find out as soon as I get the car back from the shop fixing the starter.