re: seat interchangeability

[C1J1Miller@aol.com]

You wrote:
<snip>  
<<Here's the scope on the distances between the rear seat's sliders:

The manual 4000/Coupe GT/UrQ seat - 465mm
The manual A4 seat - 560mm
The manual/electrical 5000/100/200 seat - 580mm

The channels on the floor of the A4 are 570mm apart.>>
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Seems simple, actually:  take the seats you want to a welder along with the
current seat base, and have him cut off the old rails and put on the ones from
the seat that fits.  May need to fabricate various brackets to make it work,
but should take less than a couple hours - I don't know what welder's charge,
but I bet it'd be less than $100.
----
<<The 5000 seat almost fits the A4, however it jams before reaching all
the way down for the channels. I have a feeling that if we had a seat to
destroy and would've used my favourite high precision tool (the BFH), we
could've bent the seat sliders slightly inwards. All we needed were
lousy 10mm.

Then again, the relative position of the centre perforated rail might
have become an issue, coz on the A4 this rail is visibly offset to the
centre of the car.>>
-----
This would seem like a pretty simple job for the welder: cut off the center
rail, and make it match the A4 seat base, then remove the channels and remount
them where they match the A4 seat base.  
-----
<<Bottom line: I am stuck.
On top of that, if you disable the seat airbag on the '98 A4 (of course
having had disconnected the battery prior to that), the airbag watchdog
does pick up a fault code and the light comes on.
If you reconnect it back, THE LIGHT WILL CONTINUE TO STAY ON! My dealer
warned me about this and it is indeed true. All A4 owners take a note.>>
----
Makes sense; if there was an intermittant fault/loose connection, they'd want
it inspected rather than you thinking it was "better".  I assume that this is
only for the passenger seat; why have a sensor for the driver's side?  I
suppose you could fix the sensor to always think the seat was occupied, or do
one of those "key activated" on/off switches and lights to replace the sensor.

Have you considered either: reupholstering the existing seat, or trying to use
the A4 base with a back from the 5000/4000?  No idea what would mate up... 

HTH, Chris Miller, Windham NH, c1j1miller@aol.com, '91 200q with
barcoloungers.  But, they're in good shape...