Answer From Normand Landry :

Well, thank you Tony for the nice comments. We always appreciate to hear from anyone

who has done the new slider install. 

It was amazing to see almost EVERY seat come out with broken and cracked
seat sliders. 

That is one of the reasons we recommend not to take your seat rails apart if you are not ready to install new sliders and have the new parts on hand. We found that over 90% of the time the original sliders will be defective and impossible to work with.

I would like to make a small correction though.

I have very little to do with the invention of this product Tony, all the credit for the 

slider upgrade should go to Jim Moulton who spend countless hours designing the sliders

to perfection. I on the other hand saw the need through-out the B-Body community, found a

machine shop to produce the sliders on a large scale, took care of advertising, customer

relations as well as order processing.

Thank you again Tony for the great comments.

Norm.

Answer From Normand Landry :

First Tully, let me thank you for your confidence towards our new sliders. In fact, looking back  at our ordering database you where one of the first to give us your trust towards this new product. 

I am glad to hear you finally got them new sliders installed. I remember receiving an email  a few

months ago where you told me that you would wait and do the install with your friends at ROD.

I salute your team player attitude Tully, ROD can be proud to have members like your in it's

rank.

Norm.

Normand, I would like to thank you and those involved in developing and producing the
seat sliders. Our seatapalooza went very well, I believe about ten cars showed up. We
also made a discovery that you should amend in to your web site replacement
instructions. Using our method makes changing out and reinstalling the sliders a 20
minute one man job. Even faster with two people. This time does not include seat
removal and reinstall.

Seat removal:
We found that to remove the seat, first move the seat all the way back so access to
the front two
10 mm mounting nuts can be taken off. Remove the two nuts. Move the seat all the way
forward and up. Disconnect the power lead. Remove the four rear 10 mm mounting nuts.
Lift the seat and turn it so that the seat is facing your stomach. Carefully angle
the seat out the driver's door. To reinstall the seat reverse the process.

Seat slider fix:
First, we did not remove the seat tracks from the seat. What we did was turn the seat
over an a stool or a bench if you don't have a stool. The stool gives access to both
sides and lets you continue to use your dominant hand to it's fullest. Once inverted
we removed the four 10 mm bolts which hold the plastic slider gear box in place. Once
the bolts are out, just a slight tug and the gear box falls out. Once out, push the
slider out toward the front of the seat. Remove the old slider pieces and install the
new ones. While the sliders were out we greased the toothed track on the slider and
sparingly put some in the track where the seat sliders contact. Too much here only
gets pushed out when the seat is moved all the way back. Reinstall the whole slider
until the front of the slider  is flush with the front of the seal rail. Push the
gear box back in to place and reinstall the four 10 mm bolts and that is it for one
seat.

 I know there were pictures taken and should be coming your way soon. I believe Ed
Runnion will also contact you regarding the day.


Thanks,
Donald Leitao

Answer From Normand Landry :

Thank you Donald for the nice comments.                                                                                                        It is always a pleasure to hear from enthusiast SSer's.

I also wish to thank you for your investigating mind, this new method will make it easyer

for everyone who wish to do this Mod. Corrections to our Step by Step online instuction

web page will be made as soon as we have new pictures. 

Thank you for making this great product even greater.

Answer From Normand Landry :

I am glad you had fun Les, that's what it's all about. Common interests, good friends and

just a good excuse to get together. 

Just the though that Jim and I had a little something to do with this get together make me

smile. We are proud to be part of this great community, it is always amazing to see the activities

still generated by our B-Bodies through-out the Continent even after so many years.

Bravo ! To all who made this event such a great success.

Norm.

It never ceases to amaze me how we come together as a club and help each
other out. I came rather late, about 1:30 p.m. and headed into the garage to
see Mike Allendorfer and Dana La Gruta sweating away as they were working
furiously on two seats. I watched for a few minutes and BAM! each seat they
were working on was done, about thirty minutes. I was also amazed to see that
they were not using the disassembly procedure that Normand Landry provides.
They had figured out a shortcut.
I think the funniest part of the day was when Mike Allendorfer unknowingly
picked up Dana's T-shirt which someone had placed in an old rag box and wiped
off his greasy hands. Dana realized this but only after it was too late. :^(
Before you knew it, Les was calling us for dinner. There was salad, garlic
bread, spaghetti, green beans and barbecued chicken and there was a lot of
it. For those that did not or could not come you missed a good mod day and a
good meal. Thanks to Les, Dave and Nancy. After dinner, it was back to
finishing Ed Runnion's car and mine.
We were finally done! Now it was time for play. After changing out back
tires/rims on Les' soon to be race car (3rd gen. Camaro) we all drove a short
distance to watch Dave Scott burn a set of old tires he had laying around. It
was cool to see the cats glowing orange and just for fun I went up to the car
and pushed the rear end while Dave was doing the burn out. It's amazing how
easily it moved. After a while Dave corded the left side and stopped. When
the smoke cleared we investigated the carnage that was inflicted on those
poor old tires. :^) There was rubber sprayed out for about twenty feet and a
bunch of steel belt that now looked like an expanded ball of twisted wire
about beach ball size laying about five feet behind the car. After a tire
change it was back to Dave's house to unwind and just hang out. Jason
provided some hilarious memories of his and Dave's childhood.

I think when everything was said and done it was 11:00 p.m. when everyone
finally went home.

Once again, a special thanks to Les, Dave, Nancy, Mike, Dana and those who
also had some doing with this "fix it" day. This would not have been possible
without the ingenuity of Normand Landry for coming up with this fix. Like
Tony Hill said, "This club is GREAT!."

Donald Leitao

Answer From Normand Landry :

Donald, thank you for commenting this great Mod day. 

Be sure the efforts Mike and Danna deployed have been noticed, we will do the 

appropriate changes to our website to include this new installation shortcut.

Sounds like you guys really had a lot of fun ! Good food, great people, Easy seat fix and

a lot of new memories to share and remember topped with some rubber burning.

What a great day!! 

Just the though of a day like that could turn me back into a kid again.

Norm.

Norm and Jim,

Don't know if you caught the below in Les' post to the ROD list (I know his
writing style is a bit hard to read at times), but it's important.....

Basically, once the seat is out of the car, the ONLY thing you have to do is
unbolt the rail gearboxes (held to the rails by two 10mm bolts on each
rail).   Once those gearboxes are unbolted, you move the gearboxes down from
the rail, and the rail slider (with the broken plastic parts on it) will
slide right out!

No messing with springs.    No disassembling the entire rail.   No
uncoupling the motor from the gearboxes.     No removing the rails/motors
from the seat.   NOTHING!

Just put the new plastic parts on the rail slider, grease them up, and bang
them back in (they'll slide, but tightly) with a rubber mallet.   Reinstall
the gearboxes (once again, two 10mm bolts on each side) and reinstall the
seat.   DONE!

I think this simpler procedure is gonna lower the "intimidation" factor on
the mod, and help you sell a LOT more of the kits.

Like Les said, they took pics which will be forthcoming.

Gotta hand it to them, Mike and Dana (who figured this out) are both pretty
bright dudes!

BTW, great kit!     My seats (Bonny 12 ways....on Impala rails) have NEVER
felt this solid in the car!   Can't wait for my next AutoX this coming
Sunday, where the seat will NOT be "dancing" under me!

Ed

Answer From Normand Landry :

Hi Ed, it's good to hear from you my friend.
I took some note on the " to be new way to install the sliders"
We heard a lot of different ways people are installing the new sliders
but you guys found the best way to explain how easy this can be.
Thanks to Mike and Dana for they're findings and expertise.

You are right Ed, this method is more user friendly and I will use it
on our website as soon as I get a few pics.

BTW I wouldn't be surprised if you gained a few 10's autocrossing Ed. Now
that you will be able to concentrate even more on the course and not on your
seat sliding all over the place.

I am planning to have all the ROD comments up on our website in a few hours
and to make updates as the new messages come in.
I will be answering every messages that come across.

For the past few weeks Jim and I have been debating
about getting new sliders machined...

I still feel very strong about this product but it is getting harder
to reach people in need for these new sliders.
Word to mouth is our best tool and I hope our decision to invest
into a new batch of sliders will be a good one.

We will most likely start a new promotional campaign some time next month
and will send messages to all B-Body Clubs and Groups.

Thank you for the nice comments and support Ed.
Thank you also for your faith in our product. As I remember you where one of
the first people to encourage us with an order.

Regards
Norm.