Frozen Seat Rails

Maintenance advice to keep your Spider in shape.
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ROOK1

Frozen Seat Rails

Post by ROOK1 »

How do I free up my seat rails? They are rusty and will not move. I need to free them up so I can remove the seats. Any advice would be appreciated.
mdrburchette
Posts: 5754
Joined: Wed Jan 25, 2006 5:49 am
Your car is a: 1972 Fiat 124 Sport
Location: Winston-Salem, NC

Re: Frozen Seat Rails

Post by mdrburchette »

I would first check to make sure nothing is stuck in the rails then spray penetrating oil on them. I've got to do the same thing to my X19 but if you think there's no room in a 124, there's even less in an X. :?
1972 124 Spider (Don)
1971 124 Spider (Juan)
1986 Bertone X19 (Blue)
1978 124 Spider Lemons racer
1974 X19 SCCA racer (Paul)
2012 500 Prima Edizione #19 (Mini Rossa)
Ever changing count of parts cars....It's a disease!
Ernie
Posts: 113
Joined: Wed Mar 19, 2008 2:07 pm
Your car is a: 1978 Fiat Spider
Location: Huntsville, AL

Re: Frozen Seat Rails

Post by Ernie »

Like Denise says, the first thing is to douse the rails with some kind of penetrating lube. Bunches of it is better. You can clean up the mess when you finally get the seat out.

The first time I had to remove a stuck seat, I managed to get the locking lever out of one of the slots and hung on the flat between the slots. Then I got in the back seat and kicked the front seat silly until it moved.

Another time, because the seat was already far forward, I used a large drift pin and big hammer to knock the seat rail back and forth a bit at a time until the penny that seemed to be locking it popped out.

I know you said your is rusty, so that's a bit of a different problem, but trying to move the seat first one way then the other is probably a good start. Frequent applications of penetrating oil once you get any movement should free the seat up enough you can get to the screws.

Another thing -- don't know why Fiat used phillips head screws, but I found that putting a big phillips screwdriver on the screw and rapping it with the hammer makes it easier to get the screws out. Some easy taps with penetrating oil seems to help before you give it the big one. Most important not to mess up the slots, so go slow.
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danaspider
Posts: 169
Joined: Mon Jan 14, 2008 9:22 pm
Your car is a: 1979 Spider 2000 79 vw bus
Location: Newcastle, WA

Re: Frozen Seat Rails

Post by danaspider »

Rook1, can you get to either the front or back screws? Of so loosen them and then try to move the seat. There is some play in the holes and if they are tightend with the seat at one extreme or the other you can slide the seat to where it is almost impossible to move.

So when you get it moving and put it back in, slide it forward and back before tightening down.
Luck Dana

79 Spider 2000
carb
It all about the romace of the car and owner
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Nanonevol
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Posts: 828
Joined: Thu Nov 13, 2014 9:17 am
Your car is a: 1977 Fiat 124 Spider
Location: Medway, Massachusetts

Re: Frozen Seat Rails

Post by Nanonevol »

I just spent several hours getting my drivers seat out and unstuck. Would not go back and forth at all to get to the screws so I had to estimate where they were and drill holes in the seat pan. When I fianlly got the slider mechanism out it took severe hammering to get it to start moving. Used penetrating oil etc. Finally after all that work I profited one banged up nickel that was jammed sideway inside.
1977 Fiat Spider
1985 Jaguar XJ6
1967 Triumph Bonneville (hard-tail chopper)
1966 BSA Lightning
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4uall
Posts: 4145
Joined: Mon Sep 26, 2011 12:09 pm
Your car is a: 1980 Fiat Pininfarina Spider 2000 F.I.
Location: Ottawa, Ontario, Canada

Re: Frozen Seat Rails

Post by 4uall »

speaking of nickels :shock: I found a 1980 Canadian nickel under my original carpet padding still a mystery to this day :?

https://flic.kr/p/aWH6qa
Jay

Fiona
1980 FI 2000 Spider
ITZEBTZE

https://goo.gl/photos/eNKaX7hrXhBu9fmp6

FINN (FN-2187)
2014 Jeep Wrangler Sport
MYTHERPY
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