Seat track disassembly

[Aar1064]

I'd like to disassemble my seat tracks in order to get them clean as possible as part of the restoration. A quick glance after removing from seats leads me to believe that the mount studs will not allow this. Am I missing something?

Thanks in advance.

[Slotts]

There are a couple of tricks to disassembling seat tracks.

First, the welded in studs stay in place. Take pictures of the spring orientation positions so the installation is correct after your restoration. Remove the springs first. What you need to remove is the stamped bolt retainer that holds the loose bolt that mounts into the seat. Those bolts come out and then extent the track allowing the roller bearing guide to pass over the welded in stud. The one side retainer will come out with two side ball bearing, too. Then move the top track to the other side and do the same thing. The two halves will now separate.

Second, removing the knob does usually require some persuasion. Remove the screw from the knob. If the knob pulls off, great. If not, add a drop or two of a light penetrating oil into the knob slot on the bottom. Then using a propane torch with as small of a flame as you can get, point it away from the knob on the bottom arm close to the track. When you see a little wisp of smoke from the oil heating up, the metal is now getting hot enough melt through the plastic and you can try to pull the knob off. It may take a couple of cycles to get the knob removed, but it works. The reason that knob doesn't want to come right off is the holes drilled to mount these knobs were not clean. There usually are spurs from where the drill bit went through the other side and when built, the knobs were just pushed down over those spurs and screwed in. File off any of the spurs around the hole after this. Remember, quality control was only a concept back then.

Jim

[Cuda Cody]

    

[Aar1064]

Ok. I'll try this approach sometime today.

Thanks for the reply

[Aar1064]

I'm not understanding what you mean because I don't see anything that can be removed easily. Are you referring to the part in pic? If yes, I'm assuming grind head off and weld back in place. I'm not sure I want to do that. The other track assembly doesn't have this and the stud that mounts to floor is the culprit.

I could be way off here so please excuse my ignorance.

[Cuda Cody]

Not sure these will help, but I'll share some photos of E-Body tracks that I've taken apart.  I don't have to weld them or anything.  This is as far as I take them apart....

[Cuda Cody]

Some more photos.... hope these help.     These are all E-Body tracks.  Maybe you see something in the photos that helps. 

[Aar1064]

Thanks for the pics Cody. It lead me to the culprit that was keeping me at bay. The tracks are bent at each end to retain the bearing assembly. I bent that up and out they came. So simple. I didn't see that until I saw one of your pics.

Thanks for taking the time.

[HP_Cuda]

@Cuda Cody I'll order two up and a side of fries

[tparker]

Has any one replaced the bolts on the seat track? I have one that is broken. Looks like it's pressed in, but I doubt they will be easy to find. Any ideas, thoughts?

Tom

[tparker]

Ha, after searching for the rear seat bolts, I found them at R/T Specialties in case any one needs them. $3.00 beats $100+ for a new track 
http://www.rtspecialties.net/proddetail.asp?prod=0998196

[GY3R/T]

  Cody.  AKA- Seat Track Master.    What shade/kind of yellow are you painting track lock spring ?

[Jocigar]

Hi All,

Spent the weekend blasting seat tracks and seat frames.

At risk of sounding stupid, I couldn't patiently figure out how to get the tracks apart (it felt like I was hitting a hard stop)... am I to pry with a screwdriver via hole as in cody's pic?


I am missing one roller, one bearing, one large spring.  and some of the square slotted base bolts.

Can I steal those parts off a 73 seat that I have?  do they sell rebuild kits or do most of you use the old rolling parts.


Any tricks to making them tighter on reassembly?   ...Maybe there is a step by step resto thread

Thank you !

[njsteve]

Does anyone have a single ball bearing? I seem to be missing one of the ball bearings and don't know where to procure one.

I measured it and it is .310 which, by the way is a 32 caliber ball for a shotgun buckshot!

[njsteve]

Well, I went down the interwebs rabbit hole and found that Home Depot sells the exact size: 5/16 (.310) steel ball bearing at 94 cents each. Or you can buy 500 or 1000 of them via Amazon for around $20.

My local HomeDepot had them so I bought 4 just in case I need some spares.