Passenger Side Front Shoulder Belt Needed

[ARCHINSTL]

I need a front passenger-side shoulder belt complete.
One half of the male buckle is broken; this part allows friction on the belt to be maintained so it does not slide down to the floor when not in use, making it inconvenient for a passenger to reach it. The buckle still latches OK, so it is not a rush job.
I've taken the DS off to lube the mechanism, so am familiar with how it works. It appears that the buckle is permanently installed on the belt at the factory and it and the retracting mechanism are a "sealed unit." Anyway, I would be quite apprehensive about messing with this. The belt itself is pretty stained, too.

SO - does anyone have a complete tan front belt available? I presume the DS and PS are identical?
Thanks,
Tom M.

[dlb]

i should be able to grab one from the wrecker by my house, i think it's still on the car. i'm going down today so i'll take a look and let you know, anyway, if it's real ugly you could probably bleach it clean but that might be more hassle than you're looking for.

i'll let you know this evening.

[ARCHINSTL]

David -
Great! Let me know and maybe we can work a swap! The rack will not get out until prob Tues or Wed.
Actually, before the buckle broke, I looked into bleaching and then dyeing the belts. It turns out that either bleaching OR dyeing the belts with any kind of coloring agent will cause them to deteriorate - so I passed on that. I guess I need a pretty clean (or at least not stained) belt.
Note that it IS OK to wash them with the usual "mild soap solution."
Tom M.

[dlb]

tom, i checked out the seat belt at the wrecker the other day and it was moldy and gross but i then remembered there is another T4 with the brown interior at another wrecker not far from here so i'll call them tomorrow (monday) and get back to you then.

and oddly enough, i was putting the interior back into reggie (the project tercel) and found the the driver side seat belt wouldn't stay up. i looked closer and found that it has the same problem that you just mentioned! SYNCHRONICITY, WEEEIIIIIRRRDDDDD

[ARCHINSTL]

I had a problem with the DS belt retracting completely. So I removed the panels and loosend the retractor and shot silicone lube into the retractor itself (around the spindle). It can't be disassembled, but the lube helped dramatically - it now retracts the belt completely. Gotta do this once a year.
Thanks for looking! Hey - also grab the interior headliner-mounted grab handles with their little covers and bolts!
Tom M.

[dlb]

bad news, no dice on either of the seat belts. both are mouldy i'm afraid. i can grab the handles for you if you like though. how many do you need? my car has them mounted above each door except for the driver's but there are plugs in the headliner there so you can likely put one in for yourself if you like--just in case your driving is scaring even yourself!

[ARCHINSTL]

RATS! on no belt!
I'd like to get three of them, with the caps and bolts. My car has the OE PS only handle. The color is a sorta taupe, which I think was the same for all - anyway, whatever came with the tan interior. The plugs are there - just nada installed.
My '83 SR5 had none on the left side, and one (maybe two?) on the right side.
Rack out tomorrow!
Tom M.

[dlb]

ok, i'll grab them on my day off tomorrow and send them out ASAP--caps, bolts, and all!

[Petros]

there are two shades of tan intirior, the '85 and later is darker so if you want it to match you have to get the later one.

If you can find someone that sews with an industrial sewing machine you can install the replacement buckle, or as you surmised you have to replace the whole assembly. This is not an uncommon problem about half of the Tercels I have owned had the last loop on the buckle broken off. the first loop has steel inside it, the second one is just for the extra friction so is plastic. And they often get slammed into the car door. My daily driver had good ones until just recently, I unknowingly slammed it into the car door and broke it. I do not think left and right are the same, but the right (passanger) side should have much less wear and tear on it anyway. finding front good belts is difficult, but it can be done. There is a picknpull in Chico CA with the color you need, I just saw it on saturday when I stopped there on my way back north with a new purchase.

[ARCHINSTL]

A followup on the seat belt buckle thingie "resolution" - I raised the buckle to the proper height on the belt (no passenger in the seat), just below the belt's B pillar 180° buckle. I then put many turns of electrical tape around the belt, taking care to not compress the fabric and to try to maintain the original width of the belt. This extra thickness of the "modified" belt keeps the buckle in the convenient place for the passenger to grab it, instead of it sliding down the belt to the floor and making the passenger search and fumble for it.
This will do until I find an undamaged and sanitary '86 PS tan belt.

While OT, I also resolved the many-cracked opening of the sleeve that encloses the female latch - this permitted the latch to flop down and be awkward to grasp. I used "Amazing Goop," one of those clear wonder adhesives, to build up the lip. It took quite a while with repeated layers and protracted drying, but it came out pretty good, does the job, and is hardly noticeable (well, by moi, anyway).
Tom M.

Left-click to enlarge

[dlb]

it's funny to learn of these common flaws: my passenger side female seat belt end also has the split plastic case which makes it flop around. i honestly don't care but my grandma always had a hard time with it when i drove her anywhere.

on jenn's truck, her driver seat belt didn't stay up so for a short while i put a safety pin in the belt at the appropriate height, similar to your tape method. then i realized that in the event of an accident, it was pretty likely the pin would come undone and driver would wind up getting a punctured lung or bowel from it. that was the end of THAT clever little fix.

[Petros]

these lower plastic sleeves almost never hold up. I have watched for good ones on the cars coming through the local yard and they are almost always bad. you might want to just sew a fabric sleeve up to make it good and durable.

Tom, on your electric tape fix, they actually have plastic and metal clips that will do the same thing. My wife found them in a baby supply shop (sells baby stuff) way back when we had little ones that needed car seats. It makes it easier to install and remove the baby seat. It will work the same way your improvised tape will work. You can also make a strap with velcro on it, you go around both legs of the webbing to hold the buckle in the same place. They even have color matched fabric ones with padding.

[ARCHINSTL]

A-HA! on the (just the latest) clever tip from Petros!
They didn't have those things when my youngest (just turned 40...) was a baby. I will check that out this week!
Mentioning baby seats - to think that kids survived with being placed in a "pumpkin seat"* and just placed on a car seat...
Now is better - much better.
Tom M.

* Sort of a plastic seat; they had a belt to keep the baby from sliding out of it - but nothing to hold the seat under a belt - if you even had a newer car with lap belts (no shoulder belts unless you had a Volvo).

[Petros]

when I was very young it was fairly normal to see new borns carried in their mothers laps in those large american cars. Now people would call the cops if they saw that. The attitudes toward safety has changed quite a bit since I was young. I remember the first car my dad got with seat belts he took them out, he found them in the way and annoying. I always used them from my very first car ( a volvo 122S in fact), I would tighten them way up so they held me in the seat when I went around corners. That way I did not have to hold so tight on to the steering wheel.

[rer233]

volvo makes a 2 piece plastic "button" that goes thru the seatbelt webbing to keep the male part of the seatbelt latch from sliding down the the belt. PN 9196503 -$5.19. just poke a small hole thru the webbing, put one piece on either side of the webbing, squeeze, and heat the center pin with a soldering gun. as for seatbelts in old cars, my mother REFUSED to drive the one year old '52 packard dad bought until he put seat belts in it. as i recall, he wasn't too happy about that!