seat belt
Safety Car
Joined: Mar 2017
Posts: 3,771
Likes: 940
From: Orlando Florida
Sadly, I didn't take photos when I had mine apart. Frankly, I suspect that, similar to my '99 when I got it, it's mostly dirt stiffened belts and gunk in the retractor. To fix mine, I removed the belts and retractors from the car, then extended the belts to the limit possible. I used a couple of small hex keys to lock the retractors in the extended position. I have a laundry sink in the garage with a cabinet over it, so suspended the retractors just ever so barely over a bucket of the hot water and washed the belts with dish soap and a tooth brush. Let the belts dry a day, then turned to the retractors. There is a spring on one end, tilt pendelum and ratchet on the other. Gunk and corrosion on the steel housing. Cleaned everything and applied sparing oil to bearing points. If it sounds like a lot of work, then I've been overly optimistic. Good used belts can be found on E-Bay, but be careful -- I got stuck with a $150 pair of useless belts that had been through a crash.
Also, early units had a problem with belt twist leading to jammed retractors. The GM solution was to fit a plastic belt guide at the slot coming out of the retractor -- for 97s and possibly 98s that plastic guide was a retrofit piece that had a snap fitting to fit around the belt, and then clip onto the retractor. It can come loose and flip over under the trim cover and cause problems as well.
Also, early units had a problem with belt twist leading to jammed retractors. The GM solution was to fit a plastic belt guide at the slot coming out of the retractor -- for 97s and possibly 98s that plastic guide was a retrofit piece that had a snap fitting to fit around the belt, and then clip onto the retractor. It can come loose and flip over under the trim cover and cause problems as well.
