Dirty 930: Safety First

 

One thing that is often neglected in older cars is the seat belt assembly. Over time, the belts can become crusty and as they age they lose a significant amount of their strength and can snap in a big wreck. The retractor mechanisms also can wear out which could also be a disaster if the belt failed to tension as designed in a big impact.

When I first got my Targa (“Sally”) I notice the belts in the car were very faded and sun damaged. This made sense as the car spent its entire life in the desert between Scottsdale and Palm Springs. I found that the best supplier for new belts was Professionally Engineered Products which is also known as Go Westy since their main business is offering parts for older VW Westfalia camper vans.

Since then, the belts Go Westy offers have changed a bit and no longer can be used with the factory belt latches so to refit Dirty properly I was going to have to remove and replace the belt latches along with the belts and retractor assembly.

The retractor lives just under the trim panel for the rear quarter panels and is held in place with one 17mm bolt. I found both sides to be monstrously overtorqued and I needed a breaker bar to get them loose. They let loose with a mighty squeal so the torque value was way up there. Since these were the original factory belts I can only assume the factory set them that way but with old cars you just never know who has been in there. Since every bolt on this car has been seriously over tightened, I can only assume that Herr Overtorker may have monkeyed with the seat belts too.

 

Once the bolts are all removed, the assembly comes out fairly easily once the belt is threaded through the quarter panel trim. As they say in the book, installation is the reverse of removal  but a pro tip is to make sure you don’t have the belt twisted the wrong way before you snug everything down. I had to flip the mounting on the floor as I did initially install it in the wrong orientation.

 

Now that the retractors and belts were done it was time to tackle the latches. This should have been easy with just a single bolt holding the latch to the seat frame but as sometimes can happen , the driver’s side was a bear to get done because the wiring harness for the belt alert light was zip tied to the seat coils with the world’s tiniest and least accessible ties. I ended up having to completely remove the seat to get this done which ended up being a good thing as I was able to fix some wiring under there and also lube up the seat tracks.

 

 

 

Unfortunately, the new receivers lack the proper wiring to have the warning light work but thankfully with the wiring unplugged the light stays off because of the design of the latch assembly that turns off the light by breaking the circuit when the belt is latched.

 

 

 

With the driver’s side done, I moved on to the passenger side which luckily lacked the wiring for the warning light so I was done in a quarter of the time that it took me to do the driver’s side because I did not have to remove the seat or fumble around with the wiring.

Dirty is now ready for the summer driving season and we can wheel confidently knowing that our safety belts are now in good order.