w124 Cabrio passenger seat removal?

[87tdwagen]

Hello all:
After searching the forums and looking at my situation, I need some ideas as to how to remove the passenger seat in the 94 cabrio. I had a thread some years ago regarding the seat switch losing it's fore/aft function, and although that seemed to have worked itself out, it also has reared its ugly head again.

Currently the seat has all functions but the fore/aft one, unfortunately it is about 75% of the way forward and thus covers the front mounting bolts. The rears are accessible, but I cant get to the front ones to unbolt the seat. In the later w124 set-up the system uses micro switches and the switches are fine, and working as they should, so the loss of the fore/aft function seems to be either a motor or connection issue between the switch and the motor. Unfortunately the plug harness to the motor cables is under the seat in a black plastic containment shelf making it extremely difficult to unplug and the routing of the cables does not seem to allow for withdrawing the motor cables to test the motor or reposition the seat with a 12v supply to the motor; requiring removal of the seat to access the motor connectors.

Is there any way to free up the fore/aft motor assembly to at least gain manual fore/aft movement of the seat?

Any other means of seat removal that you can think of in a situation like this where you cannot access the forward mounting bolts nor move the seat electrically to do so?

Any tips on removing the plastic trim around the seat base? It's old brittle and does not seem visually obvious as to how it comes off nor can I find the details in the FSM.

All suggestions welcomed, TIA