seat belt receiver torx bolt hole location and torn seat belt replacement

383_StealthRam said:

They're part way up the side of the trans/driveshaft tunnel. From the pic 86LK posted, here they are circled in red.


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which reminds me... the line you see from left-to-right is where we cut thru the floor to remove the front half of the cab (it's not rust-thru) with a torch, leaving some of the rear floorpan but just behind where the seatbelts would bolt down

First of all the retractor reel is spring loaded, so you will not only be trying to remove the webbing from that reel, you will be fighting the recoil mechanism that retrieves the belt when you punch the release button. Why? Because to get to the end of the web that is mounted/attached to the reel, you have to extend the web belt all the way out which has the effect of winding up the recoil spring to about tight. Unless you can figure out a way to lock or freeze the reel from moving against the pull of the spring, there is a very good chance that once you remove the belt, the reel is going to wind up again, that being its normal behaviour pattern, and that will mean that you will have to figure out a way to wind the reel back out again to bring it back to where it has to be to install the web and then have it retract correctly.

For myself, my vote goes to the salvage yard crawl and scoring a decent complete replacement. Both less frustration and less likely to result in getting a finger or two nipped or ripped during trying to disassemble the retractor.


Nick

I used Safety Restore to do my seatbelts. They clean the mechanisms and reweb the seat belts. Reasonable price, good communication, fast work. I wanted to keep the catch mechanism located behind the striker plate. One of mine was broken, so I replaced that for $40, now my belts work like they should. I had a cut in my driver's side belt in the same spot. I'm really pleased with how they came out.

paradigm said:

Are the factory OEM seatbelts non locking? If not I definitely want a set of aftermarket locking seat belts in the event of a crash. It seems like you are free to smash your head into the dash with the OEM belts?

Also to access the front retractors, rear upper and lower bench needs to be removed, to access and remove rear quarter trim, then remove the ratchet handle in the door pillar then unscrew bottom of retractor and pull up? And of course remove torx upper and lower fasteners?

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When I mentioned locking, I meant that you could put slack in the belt. The retractors do that, but the are a pain to get to. I had all of my trim panels out chasing rust, so before I put everything back together I replaced the broken retractor. As far as I know, all seatbelts should lock in a collision situation. I was referring to the slack in the belt, which my wife would never be able to live without.

The "slack" feature is for comfort while driving so you don't have the belt rubbing your neck. You activate it with a quick tug on the belt after it's latched.

The "locking" function is for forward inertial impacts that will prevent your upper body from jettisoning forward into or through the windshield. This happens automatically and is very dependent on the retractor being installed in the proper orientation for it's inertial lock mechanism to engage in a sudden impact collision.

At least that's how I remember it.

My slack feature never worked from day one while my friends always did. I think they were very hit or miss...

The slack feature is worth it's weight in anything you can weigh that's valuable. I hate the belt tugging on my neck. None of the aftermarket belts have this feature. That's (one of the reasons) why the replacements are rather inexpensive.

The fact is, no matter which route you choose, updating the belts are like fixing the brakes. No matter how fast your car goes, some things are more important than anything else.