A Body Seat Tracks repair question...

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craigibc

wishin' my Demon was done
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A Body Guys.....

Does anyone know how to take these tracks apart so I can restore them? I would like to dis-assemble these so I can repaint them.

Thanks,

Craig
 
There are ball bearings inside and the two halves are riveted together, I think.
I decided it was two much hassle so I packed the bearings with a light grease like a wheel bearing and brushed off the rust with a wire brush, then spray painted em with rustoleum paint and called it good.
 
Does anybody know if someone sells the wire spring that connects the two tracks so they release at the same time? Mine broke and I have not seen any repo'd.
 
The track in the picture above has rollers in steel cages.Catch that cage with a strong hook like a dental pic and pull it out the end. There is a hole in the bottom through just one of the 2 pieces (hard to see in the pic). I have had to drill through there so to drive the stop impression in the adjoining piece back a tad but most will come out just slammed against one end stop or the other. Hope this makes some sense.
 
The crosswire is just that. Throttle cables of scrap lawn mowers and such have a great piece of wire inside their casing. Or the parts yard should have in Fords and others.
 
craigibc said:
A Body Guys.....

Does anyone know how to take these tracks apart so I can restore them? I would like to dis-assemble these so I can repaint them.

Thanks,

Craig
Click to expand...

I had tried to take mine apart and tired all sorts of ways to get them apart but to no avail.......I ended up doing like 1badgts had done......except I used a sand blaster and got the rust off then spraying them with rustoleum primer (couple coats) then sprayed a couple coats of semi gloss rustoleum paint....of course I blew out the bearing area good and re-greased them. Worked just fine.
Greg.........mtn_jake
 
I just did a set of tracks last weekend for my friend's 1970 Dart that were seized with gunk and dirt. He had them sand blasted but a good wire wheel brushing also works just as well. Nobody's going to bend over that far to look under your seat to see if they are perfectly smooth. I put the track in a bench vice and sprayed the crap out of them with a silicon lubricant (WD40 works OK to). Now you can release the lock mechanism and slowly get them moving again. Keep adding more lubricant and aggressively work them back and forth and they will soon slide like **** out of a goose!

Trying to take them apart is a waste of time and not really necessary since the two large roller bearings will work smoothly after they are oiled or greased up. I also had a connector wire missing and I just cut a length single strand stiff wire to match the length of the other side and twisted the ends through the lever holes. Just cut the missing tensioner metal strip from a scrap piece of tin and you're all done.

If you are converting from a bench seat to buckets, make sure to locate the mounting holes correctly. The outside floor pan holes are 8 inches from the outside edge of the floor pan. The inner holes closest to the centre hump are about 12 inches away from the outer holes. All Dart floor pans had bench seats actually have two dimples hammered into the floor pans for where the bucket seat tracks are mounted. Note that the bucket seat cars also had a special set of 1/8 inch thick reinforcing plates welded onto the floor pan where the studs go through for added support.
 
I've got 6 sets of bench seat tracks apart today only because they will be bucket seat track eventually. Otherise the welding could melt the plastic roller cages or even arc across a roller.
 
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