Disassembling 69 seat tracks

[Greg L.]

Can this be done without too much trouble and if so, how? I'm getting some things together for plating or in this case phosphating and would like to just plate the bottom piece if possible.

If it's too much trouble to take them apart I'll just dip the ends in the pot because I think that's all you can see anyways once they are installed.

Thanks,

Greg Linton
#45455

[Chuck S.]

Re: Disassembling 69 seat tracks

Greg, my opinion is it CAN be done, but...not without a lot of trouble. Putting the adjusters back together is likely to be the biggest problem.

This is an idea that I planned to try when I got back to my seat adjusters, but I'm happy to offer this opportunity for you to solve your problem and be the lab rat (you have to report the results).

Clean the adjusters squeaky clean with lacquer thinner, particularly the inside tracks that were greased; grease will kill your phosphate solution. Mask the phosphate finished portion, and paint the natural portion of the adjuster and assembly rivets with spray can paint. The paint should be just good enough to last through about an hour of acidic baths at elevated temperatures.

Accordingly to your practice, prep the adjusters if desired by cleaning in phosphoric acid or whatever you use. Then phosphate the entire adjuster assembly. Once the phosphate finishing is complete, thoroughly mask the phosphate portion again, and carefully remove the paint from the natural part of the adjuster using lacquer thinner, or if necessary, stripper. When the natural portion is clean, burnish with 0000 steel wool to restore a fully natural appearance. Remove the masking tape from the phosphated portion; oil the phosphate sparingly and grease the adjuster tracks.

With this approach, one thing to be noted is that phosphate will be applied to the internals of the adjusters including the tracks and the balls. Frankly, I do not see that as a problem...phosphate is often used as a lubricant in metal forming operations, and it should wear off with use. These seat adjusters are not exactly precision machinery anyway.

[Greg L.]

Re: Disassembling 69 seat tracks

Well after having a good look at them I figured out how they come apart. There is a large rivet at each end of the track that I thought was for mounting the pads to the track but they are actually the fore and aft stops. If I were to take one apart I'd drill out the front one and replace it with a high-lok because that one can't be seen when installed but the aft rivet can be with the seat all the way forward.

Anyways it's all a moot point now anyways because I can't fit the whole track in my crock pot anyways...shoulda known that! I think it will be acceptable to just dip the ends in the phosphate because the ends are all that you can see anyways once they are installed. Not as good a job as I wanted to do but I don't feel it's worth it to try and find a pot big enough just for this one job.

Oh by the way, one set of siders has the numbers 0039 stamped on them and the other set has 3408 stamped on them. So how far do we want to take this whole numbers matching game?

[Chuck S.]

Re: Disassembling 69 seat tracks

I can think of several phosphated parts that won't fit in your crockpot...or, from experience, even much bigger pans; but that IS a clever way to get the heat for the reaction without messing with open flame and improvising with highly flammable compressed gases.

I'll have to check my adjusters again, but I seem to remember that they were dated and that the dates were tightly grouped. I seem to remember that the date lead time relative the build date was typical of that seen on other parts. Another words, these adjusters were just as efficiently used as any of the other parts; i.e. no pushed-aside FILO etc, just because they were lowly seat adjusters.