Interior and Upholstery Seat Belt Update (with Bonus Under-carpet Archeology!)

MustangIIMatt

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Dirt-Old 20+Year Member
Mar 7, 2002
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Let's face it, the newest IIs are now 37 years old. The seat belts in them have all seen their better days a long time ago. If your seat belt is frayed, brittle, faded, cracking, looking fuzzy, etc. and/or the retractor doesn't click, or even work at all anymore, it's honestly not doing you ANY good, and won't protect you very well, if at all, in a crash.

The aftermarket has a surprising array of solutions out there, ranging from dirt cheap for "good enough" universal kits to a few hundred dollars to get your originals rebuilt with fresh webbing.

I don't have a few hundred to spend, and I hated the dual-retractor setup in all three of my IIs (and all three have had it), so I decided to go with a middle-of-the-road aftermarket solution with a set of Beams Industries belts.

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As you can see, my factory belt was frayed and faded, and the retractor by the quarter-window wasn't retracting anymore.

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Enter the new belt from Beams. As you can see, it's a great match for the factory color, and the starburst-pattern on the button for the buckle is identical to what was on our cars originally! This belt has 144" of webbing, so you've got plenty of belt, even for a fat boy like myself.

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First thing to do will be to remove this cover over the bolt. Mine was so brittle it snapped off in my hand. Next you'd remove the trim around the quarter window to give you access, but I'd already done this to fix something else and haven't yet installed the new piece that's going in it's place.

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The original bolt will fit through the hole in the new belt, or the new bolt that comes with the belt fits the hole in the car, the choice is yours, but I wanted to keep everything using the same sized torx socket, so I kept the original. The only downside is that it makes it harder to snap the cover over.

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The interior quarter-panel comes out next. You've got two screws in the doorjamb, and one back there by the back glass. After that it pretty much pulls out, but you may have to fight it a bit if your rear seat bottom is still in place. After that, there's one bolt holding the retractor in, it's hidden by the belt and retractor in this picture, but there's a notch in the sheet metal to get an extension and socket into.

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Next, you'll need to get under the car so you can remove the nuts holding the seat(s) in. There are four nuts on each seat, and you'll need a 1/2" deep socket to take them off. My car has this brace that was installed by the previous owner that forced me to use a wrench on one of the bolts on each side... Friggin previous owners!

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Upon getting my seat out on the driver's side, I realized I had a full-blown crisis on my hands. That's mold, growing in the carpet. I decided to finish the seat belt install to be able to finish this thread, but that immediately after I'd be ripping the carpet out. (The mold is due to weatherstripping that I didn't put back in after doing body work three weeks ago letting in water when we got about 2 feet of rain over the past two weeks, I knew the carpet was still damp, but didn't realize I had something going this wrong until yesterday.)

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If you pull back the carpet around the retractors (do it carefully if you're not replacing your carpet, your 37-41 year old carpet is going to be brittle!), you'll see two more torx bolts holding it in.

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The buckle has one bolt holding it in.

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The new buckle looks natural in it's new habitat. I didn't take a good picture of it, but on the lower belt anchor, I used the rear hole with the belt aimed forward and at an angle for now. When I put new carpet in, I will probably be relocating both to the forward holes to facilitate mounting the original covers (which previously bolted to the lower retractors, I'll be fabricating a bracket to use them).
 
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As you can see, my buckles weren't in much better shape than the belts themselves.

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Old belt out.

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Found some interesting things under the carpet, like this part-number tag, and a CB radio antenna cable.

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I don't think the foil-backed insulation under the rear seat bottom is factory.

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Found the factory build sheet, it's readable... barely.
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The floor is in great shape, if anyone's trying to make a bad Chewbacca costume, I've got plenty of this brown fuzzy crap Ford backed the carpet with left to pick off the floorpan!

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Something really interesting I found was two screws like this taped to the floor. They've obviously been there awhile, as they've left impressions in the rubberized coating on the floorpan.
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With the seats back in so it's drivable again. I've got new carpet on order with one of the wonderful vendors on Ebay. If anyone knows where I can find new seatbelt guides for the headrests, let me know!
 
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Great stuff as usual! Giving me fond memories when I had my interior out. I had to pick up and throw out a bunch of dried out floor insulation too, yours looks in good shape (I should have used some dynamat myself). The same basic installation applies to hatchbacks as well, of course removing the interior quarter trim is a bit different. On those, there is a plastic guide that goes over the retractor that keeps the belt from fraying on the interior reinforcements that should be transplanted to the new retractor.

I heard rumors elsewhere that a '70's GM seat belt guide fits the bill as long as the screwed-on part is intact. Something like these. 74 75 76 77 Chevrolet Camaro Chevelle Malibu Seat Belt Shoulder Harness Guide GM | eBay

I don't know for a fact that they fit, just repeating a rumor.
 
Nice write up. My '74 front belts are faded, frayed, and stiff. I have the PIA ignition interlock that I have to figure out how to disable too.

The Chevy seat belt guides on eBay are an exact match. However they seem to pop out of the headrest part fairly easily. Was told to remove some of the material under the hole were the guide snaps in...