Working to re-cover my Cuda seats and I have some slightly rusty but functional tracks I was considering taking apart to blast, paint and grease. The very few sources I have found suggest that the parts are hard to find and I am wondering if I am better off stripping the outer surface rust and then painting and greasing. Plus, I can't figure out how to separate the tracks anyway.

First question is how do I disassemble the tracks? Do I straighten the little bend shown in the photo to the whole track will slide out?
Second question is should I do this? The only articles I see are pretty candid about the scarcity of the track parts and if I lose a bearing or slide I could have to buy a new entire track .

What do you think?

Bend that part down and the other end and it will come appart.Watch for the ball bearings,sometimes they will fall out.

5carguy, thanks! I wanted to make sure before I start breaking things!

Just bend them back when your finished with the resto.Wait until you finish them with cleaning and new grease.You will not believe it.

On my b-body ones I cleaned all the grease out of them first (hot tank) then blasted them then soaked them in a rust converter to get the stuff in the poors. Then I primed and painted them and lubed them. It seemed pointless to me to take them all apart since there should be minimal damage (rust) in the tracks due to the grease.

Mine is soaking overnight and tomorrow I will hit it with a wire wheel and then bead blasting but I wanted to know if these look bent to you?

Actually, I have a couple of questions..

1) Should the silver ball be "locked" tight between those two supports?
2) Does the spring steel "guide" for the rollers and balls look bent to you?

With the guide inside the rail, the large steel cylinder rolls but at an angle against the rail and not parallel like I would have thought. My suspicion is the "guide" is bent from someone slamming the seat but I wanted to check with smarter people than myself to see what they think.

Yeah, that looks bent to me.