Has anyone ever disassembled their seat tracks and cleaned them? If so how do they come apart? How did you clean them? Right now I have mine soaking in a bucket of Super Clean.

 

Wade,

I did some research on this several years ago... What I discovered from some pretty sharp people (including a person who used to work for the original supplier) is that the seat tracks were never mean to be serviced in the field and as such, there was no provision made for disassembling them. The general opinion of these people was that while it could be done, you run the risk of damaging the track beyond repair.

The seat tracks for the 1968-1972 Corvettes actually use two different types of plating for the major components... What appears to be zinc phosphate for the lower section and a galvinized or zinc upper section. Because you can't easily disassemble the track, it would be very difficult to cosmetically restore a functional seat track by replating it.

Your solution to the problem, soaking the tracks in some type of penetrating oil, is probably the best idea... Or you can attempt to take them appart with the caution that you may be purchasing new seat tracks.

If you find a better way to deal with the seat track issue, I'd love to hear about it.

Regards,

 

I can tell ya one thing NOT to do ... do NOT bead blast them. I'm still triing to get all the glass beads out of the track and it seems that even a very minor trace of them causes the track rollers to bind ... Thank goodness I only did one.

 

Thanks Stan. This is pretty much what I thought. Some moron let my car sit out in the rain and fill up with water so the tracjs have a lot of rust and crud on them but seem to be solid. I do have to replace a couple of the perches though. They are rotted out pretty bad. Hopefully the solvent and a good wire brushing will take care of them.

Thanks
Wade

 

:eek: Thanks for the info I was considering sand blasting this weekend...... Will try just cleaning them instead.


Thanks
Wade

 

If rust is the problem you could try soaking them in Captain Lee's "Rust Away". I've used this stuff on many of my rusty parts and it works fantastic! It strips the rust off clean and doesn't attack the base steel. It will, however, strip any zinc or phosphate plating off too. You may be able to touch them up later with flat black paint to simulate the phosphate coating.

I read recently that gun bluing does a terrific job of restoring the phosphate look. I've also had great success with the metal blackening kit that Eastwood sells. This is supposed to actually apply a phosphate coating to ferrous parts --It looks great! This should work on your tracks as well. Since the bearings have a high chrome content they won't turn black but the seat rails will.

 

I would call Paragon. If I remember correctly, they restore seat tracks.

 

I guess I've been the only one stupid enough to try to rebuild them. After all, they were junk so what did I have to lose? Got them apart, and back to gether, but it isn't a job for the normal garage mechanic. And probally easier to find a working pair on Ebay of Gary Gruhula.

How's it done?

The tracks are indeed built as so they won't come apart. So I drilled out the "dipples" that were punched into the tracks during assemble. I used a 5/16" drill bit. Once all are drilled out, top and bottoms, the track can be slid apart. Be careful to note how the rollers and ball bearings come out so they go back the same way or you won't get as much travel when you re-assemble. I learned this the hard way. I blasted, painted, greesed, and re-assebled. Then I machined short 5/16" plugs with a 3/8" head on them and welded backed into the holes so the track wouldn't come apart. You can skip that last part if you are careful when sliding the seat not to go too far.

Lost-of-luck!

 

I media blasted mine which cleaned them up nice and allowed them to move freely again. I then washed them in a solvent tank to remove any other material from the tracks. I used a Eastwood primer and painted them black. No grit, no hang ups. Still laying around in the garage waiting on installation.
Neil in Tenn