MarkO

Anybody tried swapping just the belts themselves into the original belt retractors? I got a set of late f-body belts, but they are all wrong for my '79. I don't think it's possible, the f-body retractors must be mounted horizontally for the deceleration mechanism to work. :nonod:

So anyway, my doeskin belts are frayed and won't match the black I'm changing my interior to. The "new" gray belts I got look the right size and should fit in the original retractors. The problem is, to do that it looks like I have to remove the cover that says "Caution - do not remove". I have the feeling that if I were to remove it, it'd launch a spring across the garage with no way to get it back in.

So has anybody tried swapping just the belts? If so, how did you do it?

Mark

blunsford

I plan on sending mine to snakeoyl to rebuild and replace the belts. He could take care of it for you.

Viken

A buddy of mine owns a local upholstery shop, and i had him change the belts; first because they were wasted and second to change the color. He just pulled 'em way out, chopped them off, then stitched on new belt material. It worked great on the drivers side, but the passenger side doesn't work right anymore. Takes a lot of tries for people to get buckled in. : / Since original isn't an issue for me, i'm just gonna switch to aftermarket seats w/ harness.

MarkO

This turns out to be not too bad. The first spring came out in a big tangle and took about 20 minutes to wind back in. By the second one, I'd figured out how to take it off and keep the spring in place. I was afraid it would take some special tool, but all you have to do is put the spring in the cover, put it over the shaft, turn it until it has enough tension to retract the belt, then snap it in place.

Turns out though that the belts I got are about 18" too long, so I've cut them shorter and going to have an upholstery shop sew a new loop in the end.