Berry Kercheval wrote:
>I'm disassembling the seat rails on Sybil, the 1972 TR6 (stuff deleted) Before
>I force it and break it, has anyone else taken one apart? I'd like to
>disassemble, clean, derust, clean, paint, lube and reassemble the little
>beggars. I can see little non-metallic rollers inside so dunking the whole
>mess into the hot tank is out. What I *can't* see is anything holding these
>guys together!
Yes, I have taken these apart on my TR6 (70). As I do not have the piece in
front of me at this time I am relying on memory. Anyway here goes, The part you
can't see which makes the whole assembly work is a steel cylinder (I can't think
of a better term) roughly 2 inches long and and 1.5 inches in diameter with a
groove at either end in which thick rubber O-rings fit. This allows the track
to slide by acting as a roller between the top and bottom halves of the track.
If your seat track will not adjust it's a good bet that these cylinders are the
problem, probably due to wear, breakage of the O-rings, or the cylinders are
miss aligned (more on this in a minute) There are two of these cylinders for
each track (4 total/per seat). If you examine the track closely you will see
there are indents which act as stops for the movement of these cylinders and
thus prevent the whole assembly from coming apart. Getting back to the miss
alignment thing (and please bear with me this is kind of hard to visualize) the
travel of the seat is a function of proper alignment of the two cylinders and
the indented stops in the track. If you find that your seat will not fully
adjust the cause is usually a result of one or more of these cylinder having
slid so that they are making premature contact with the stops.
Now for the tricky part, how to get this sucker apart. As far as I can tell,
the track was not really meant to come apart. I would only do this as a last
resort if you find that the O-rings are broken and have to be replaced, (if they
are only missaligned I would attempt to realign them while still intact: see
below) You can force it apart using a rubber hammer and a vise to force the
cylinders past the stops of the tracks. For reassembly I'm tempted to say "is
the reverve of disassembly", (just kidding; I hate when the shop manuels use
this phrase as it invariable is not the reverse, as is the case here). All
kidding aside, what you need is a long screw driver, or similar object which
will allow you to force the cylinders past the stops as you slide the two halves
of the track back together. I realize this is not much help, you sort of have
to look at it as you take it apart to understand how is works. One important
note is again the alignment of the cylinders with the stops to allow full travel
of the track.
Alignment, prior to attempting disassembly I would first look at my track and
see if my problem is the result of miss alignment. You can tell if this is the
problem by examining if one of the cylinders makes contact with a stop prior to
achieving the full range of adjusting contacts between the slots cut in the side
of one of the tracks and the locking fork. If this is the case I would suggest
the use of some grease or WD-40 on the inside of the track and then gently tap
on the end and see if you can get it to slowly side over the rubber O-rings,
thus achieving the full range of motion.
Sorry if this seems confusing, but it is difficult to explain without actually
showing you in person. In actuality it was not that difficult to do once I
understood how it worked Hope this helps. Let me know if you have specific
questions I can answer.
Kevin Strait
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