I have a 91 Chevy Beretta that I’m trying to make pass a Maryland inspection.
One of the gigs was that the driver’s seat has a slight rock to it. No biggie I say, has to be a loose bolt or two. Well, I looked today, and the front of the slide track is loose, and I could not move the bolt head.
I had a windshield problem earlier, and the car floor was wet for a while. I think the bolt rusted through.
How common is this problem?
What would a typical repair action be, and cost?
Who would make such a repair (gen mechanic or body shop), since this is beyond my skills and tools?
Anything can happen when a car is twenty years old. but yes, a water leak can cause that. you can try something to give you more torque on the bolt (impact wrench or a breaker bar) but there’s a decent risk that you’ll snap the head off.
ETA:
it really depends on what’s at the core of the problem. if the bolt threads are rusted into the weld nut, then it could get expensive fast. the bolt head may break off, which means now it’ll be have to drilled out and hopefully extracted. if that fails, then you’re talking about re-tapping the weld nut and you better hope there’s enough “meat” there to do so.
You could always drill through the mount, next to the stuck bolt, through the floorpan, optionally weld a nut on the underside, paint the bare metal and put an extra fixing bolt in.
It’s not best practice, as it simply delays dealing with the problem until you actually need the seat out, but it would make it pass inspection, assuming that section of the floor is sound (if it wasn’t, I’d expect that to be a fail on it’s own but don’t know how rigorous US inspections are, I take it they put the car up on ramps to check underneath?).
Take a look under the car for the other end of the bolt. Try to grab something there and loosen and retighten. This area is often reinforced. Find a long bar and put as much torque on the bolt as possible to either tighten or break it. If you can break it you can put a new one in tight. If you can’t do anything else drill a hole ahead of the old one and use a big washer/plate to spread the force. That will be safer and hold up to more rust there. If you do it yourself, start out with a 3/16 drill and move up in diameter. That metal can be tough to drill. From underneath you can use the ground for leverage on your arm to push harder. Weak goggles for eye protection.
If this is beyond your skill and tools, I’d suggest you take it to a body shop. They should be able to fix it and would probably charge less than a mechanic. Mechanic shops’ labor rate are generally higher than that of a body shop. If the body shop can’t fix it, they should be able to refer you to someone who can.
If the bolt is simply rusted in place, there are a number of products for loosening it, starting with the venerable WD-40. If you can find both ends, spray each liberally with WD-40 (or whichever) and wait several minutes. Get the wrench and see if it’s loose. If you still can’t undo it, wiggle it around and spray again. Repeat several times and see if that helps.