A friend has an older Old Town Loon where the seat slides forward and back on aluminum poles.
The seat sticks at times.
Anyone have an idea of what kind of lubricant should be used to allow the seat to slide easier than she can manage?
My problem is that they do slide
once you have it set, you don’t really want it to move. Mine tend to creep back. Did she loosen the thumb screws underneath the slider on the seat? And retighten when in the position she wants it?
she needs them to slide.
She takes her dog so after she loads the stern, she slides the seat back to give her dog room in the cockpit, then she slides it forward to recover her dry-bags.
Maybe the slide needs inspection
to see if the aluminum is galled, pitted in the area where the slider rests. The slider might need checking also, for sand, crud.
If the aluminum is damaged, one might try wet sanding with fine sandpaper, about 400 grit, the black variety. Easy on the sanding.
On lubricants, I wouldn’t use a wet lubricant. No grease, no oil. Possibly take a #2 pencil and blacken the area where the slider customarily sits.
The way one pushes or pulls can affect whether a slider will yield and move on a tube. She would want to pull very close to the tube, not on the seat. Maybe some Nylon pull cords would help, if they don’t get wound into the mechanism.
Sounds like they had a reason to change from the tube and slider setup.
leob1, although I paddled a Loon
once to Little Tybee, I don’t recall a thing about the seat. I can’t visualize the size of the tubes, though I guess they must be substantial.
Your strategy might be to put something behind the slider that would keep it from creeping back. Ideally, if I could get the back end of each tube loose, I might cut lengths of white pvc tube that would just slip over, so that the pvc tubes would block the seat from moving.
Or, if the aluminum tubes are strong enough, small stainless steel hose clamps might take a better grip than the seat clamps.
Just spary the rails with …
silicon spray, and slide the seat back and forth a few times.
Do it a few times a year.
Jack L
If it’s like mine.
I have a Loon with the aluminium slider rails; the seat actually sits on the bottom of the boat, so if the gal is trying to slide the seat while she is seated, there might be considerable resistance. That would certainly be the case if there is dirt, grit, or anything under the seat. The same would be the case if dirt, or sand has gotten into the slides that are not a tight fit on the aluminum tubes.
OT?
Because it was designated as OT, I thought this topic was going to be about a little sandwich.