I'm working on a friends 97 mustang. The power seats have stopped working. They way she described it, its sounds to me like the motor died. Said it sounded like it was getting weak and now it does not make noise at all. Aside looking for a blown fuse (Under the hood right?), bad wire, connections, etc... is there anything else i should look for? How do I test the motor to see if its good? I think as long as I can get the seat back to where she can drive it without the knees in the dash that would be fine, is there a way I can manually move it? Thanks guys.

 

See if you can hear the motor move/bind at all. If not then start simple and check all the fuses both under the hood and under the dash. Only takes a few minutes and is actually faster then reading the manual and when your done you can be sure they are all good or find the bad one.

If you can hear it trying to move more then likely it is just dirty. There are some worm gears on the bottom that move it around and they can collect dust in the grease and slowly stop working over time. If this is the case see if you can see enough of the gears and get at them with some WD40 and a straw to clean them off. Mine did the same years ago and I was first able to get it moving with the wd40 and then took it out and used lithium grease on the gears and its been fine since.

If after cleaning them as good as you can it still will not move, then there is a chance that the plastic guide that the gear moves on has broken as its an common problem. I know I saw a write up somewhere that the guy found a replacement and fixed it but not sure where it was. If that is the case your biggest problem could be getting the seat out as with out power there is no way to move them. If they are all the way down and all the way forward/back you will have issues getting at the bolts to remove them.

 

So I looked at it today and it moves, up, down, and fwd. Just not back, the rwd doesn't even make noise. Can I change just the switch, and not have to change out the whole bracket?

 

that is strange. HAve you tried any oil on it yet? Do that first and if still nothing see if you can test the voltage on the motor while pushing the botton. It could be as simple as a switch but that is a rare one.