I replaced the element and I have a heated drivers seat again. Took less than two hours to remove the seat, replace the element, and re-install. Glad I removed the seat because it would have been a btch to do it in the car. Plus it allowed me to vacuum under the seat and between the seat and center console.
Im pretty sure my issue was the same as the one poster earlier in this thread. The plastic bar that attaches to the hook (or is it the arrow) that's in the seat foam, must have somehow worn the element wire down or broke it. To try and prevent it from happening again, I cut some of the old element fabric and stuffed it underneath and above the new element. Hopefully that helps prevent direct contact of the plastic piece and the wire.
Beer of choice for todays project.. Rogue Dead Guy Ale.
Fabric I stuffed down into the crevice to hopefully help prevent issues in the future.
Problem area that sat in the same crevice as above.
Old element and removing the hook and arrow attachments.
Image of the hook and arrow. This was the part that made me the most anxious to do the repair.
There are no good images online so I had to go with the Ford repair manual and wing it. The gray bar
is attached to the orange part. I inserted a small flat head screw driver, twisted it, and pulled the gray bar out.
Worked very well.