I JUST turned 100k and this problem reared its ugly head on the driver's seat. I was able to use the hammer trick, tapping on the back of the rail while I activated the switch to go forward, and got it loose once, but when the seat unexpectedly went all the way back again on my wife, it stuck and won't move forward.
I can tell that it is not the switch. The motor turns, and the outside rail (next to the door) tries to move. The inside rail won't budge.
I have not tried prying up on the silver part. I'll do that tomorrow.
But I wanted to share some observations so far.
1. There are three motors, one to make the seat move fore and aft, one to raise or lower the seat, and one to adjust the rake of the seatback.
2. Hmm. Didn't notice how the seat bottom tilts front to back. Might be a fourth. Anyway, the important motor is the one that controls the fore-aft motion.
3. That Fore/Aft motor has cables that attach to each endo of the motor. Those cables go out to the silver housing that sits on each rail.
4. Those silver housings are apparently small gearboxes housing a gear or gears.
5. The gear(s) in that housing engage a worm gear in the seat rail.
6. When the Fore/Aft motor turns, either clockwise or counterclockwise, the worm gears in the seat frame rail turn in one direction or the other.
7. They must go through a nut mounted to the seat itself. The synchronous rotation of the worm gears on both sides is what moves the seat back and forth.
8. The inboard rail on mine is the one that is jammed. I can see the cables torquing up when I move the fore/aft switch, so I know that something is locked on the passenger side rail.
9. I was going to take the entire seat out, but cannot. Because the seat is locked in the rearmost position, the seat frame rail extends over the cover over the outboard rear nut. I can't get the cover off, and even if I could, I might not be able to get the nut off. If I destroyed the cover to access the nut, I could do it by raising the frame rail as I loosened the nut, to provide the necessary clearance. I'll do all this as a last resort.
10. I took the seat bottom off.
a. 4 nuts on studs
Then you must remove the side cover
a. There may be an easier way, but what I did was
b. Remove One phillips screw in front
c. Pry the covers off the switches (the outside covers, the controls)
d. There are two bottom tabs that hold the fore/aft/up/down switch in place, plus a back tab or two. Loosen and remove
e. Push the side cover up and out of the slots at the top
f. Disconnect/remove the Lumbar switch if you have it, and the seatback switch.
g. Disconnect other wiring
h. Toss it in the passenger seat
Remove the seat cushion and throw it on the passenger seat too
Remove the metal center place, disconnecting wiring as necessary
You should now have access to everything
I ran out of time at this point.
I don't see how to access/remove the silver housing that contains the gears that drive the worm gear on the passenger side of the seat. I can see how to disconnect the cable from the motor, but the problem appears to be in the silver housing, and I cannot see how that comes apart.
To be continued...
Any experience or comments will be welcomed. I won't be attacking the problem until tomorrow (Thursday) evening.