Last night while driving I had a serious transmission non-shifting episode. After the panic cleared I remembered that it's done this before, if you drive too much/fast with it held in first gear (as I often do in parking lots) it won't upshift once you take off unless you come to a complete stop for a bit. I'd forgotten, and on the road it would rev and not shift, then slip and not accelerate at all, etc. (Rolling while in neutral does not clear it up.) A total mess. Pulling over and sitting in park for a few seconds restored it to normality. This transmission is _not_ right! But I think we can learn to work with it. My wife, however, will probably not notice this, its worst problem, because she uses the brakes rather than the shifter. (I use it to prevent upshifting when I don't want it to do so, I don't use it to force downshifts.)
Today I went into storage and found the best spare seat. Unfortunately it is about as discolored (from sun) as the existing seat, but at least it is not all cracked. The back might be a little better, but there are some chewed spots in the side of the would-be replacement. I'll just have to be content with replacing only the bottom cushion. I separated the two seats' halves and cleaned the new seat bottom, but I ran out of time to finish the job. It takes a fair bit of time to do seat work. And space! I was sprawled out in the yard (a soft place) trying to avoid all the nasty bones the dogs have littered the place with. Unfortunately the seat tracks have to come all apart in order to liberate the frame assembly. -- Jim
