Sedan donor belts lock up

[Buzz Skyline]

Has anyone else gotten sedan donor belts to work with donor seats? Both my driver and passenger belts locked up the first time I tried to test them. No matter how far I let them retract, they won't unlock.

I thought it was a fluke that the driver's side failed the moment it was installed, and I kept checking to make sure the passenger side still worked, but again the moment the seat was bolted down and I sat in it to give the belt a try, it locked up and won't extend.

[Goldwing]

They have a locking mechanism that gets triggered by high g's. A light toss in a box can also trigger this to happen, mine were locked up too. Once they are in the proper orientation (or like yours installed), give them a gentle, but very hard pull. I was told I'd hear a spring like sound when it released (I didn't), but after doing this (a couple times), mine started working normally. In short, they're likely fine, just need unlocked.

[Buzz Skyline]

Thanks for the suggestion, but no luck with any combination of pulls. The strange thing is they were both working until I installed them. Then they weren't manhandled at all. Just lightly extending them in order to buckle in did it.

I've pulled with increasing amounts of effort, but nothing. I turned it over to my son, who benches 350 and deadlifts 600 pounds, and he couldn't do it either.

These are from a 2002, although I doubt that makes a difference.

[AZPete]

I'm betting the orientation makes a difference. If you take them out and turn the spool end over, or turn your 818 over . . . that's why they worked before installed.

[Buzz Skyline]

I'm betting the orientation makes a difference. If you take them out and turn the spool end over, or turn your 818 over . . . that's why they worked before installed.

I prefer the rubber side down. I wonder why Rich's belts work and mine won't.

I'll probably just switch to wagon belts. I happen to have a set. I preferred using the sedan mounts, but I like my belts to work even more.

[RM1SepEx]

I had the same problem and bought another belt off ebay... I drilled out the rivets and went to take it out. It is just orientation... adjust the position slightly and it will work again. I bent the tab differently and resolved the problem, works great now.

[Buzz Skyline]

I had the same problem and bought another belt off ebay... I drilled out the rivets and went to take it out. It is just orientation... adjust the position slightly and it will work again. I bent the tab differently and resolved the problem, works great now.

Interesting. What sort of orientation change should I shoot for? With the roll more vertical of more tilted? (A picture would be great, if you happen to have one.)

In either case, I might switch to wagon belts anyway. I'd hate to have the car fully assembled only to hit a bump and have the orientation shift enough to lock up.

[Buzz Skyline]

OK, I think I found the orientation that works for the driver side: bracket bent so the roll is angled a bit away from the chassis, with the axis of the roll tilted back about 45 degrees from the horizontal (i.e. the clear housing side lower than the gray housing side).

The problem now seems to be that there is no way I can see to get the same orientation on the passenger side, although I assume all I really need to do is duplicate the orientation in the donor. I'll keep working on it. But at least the driver side seems workable.

[Mechie3]

On my 06 I had problems with one so I took it apart often. There was a ball bearing that, if you tipped it upside down, locked it. I had to pop a cover off, reset it, and then not turn it upside down when I bolted it back in.

[Buzz Skyline]

I had to pop a cover off, reset it, and then not turn it upside down when I bolted it back in.

I assume you mean the cover that says "Do not remove"? LOL

Was it the transparent cover that you took off? Or the gray side?

If the ball bearing just served to lock it when it flipped over, but didn't affect the locking action when you jerk on the belt, is there any reason not to just pull the bearing out altogether?

[Goldwing]

As far as orientation, just bolt it in the frame, and pull. Once it was unlocked, I never had another issue with it. Perhaps the locking mechanism is for rollover then? Not high g's? That would certainly trip when stored as well. Sorry, I can't snap a pic right now, if you don't have a frame handy to reference.

I modded my firewall for extra legroom. It would take even more creativity to get wagon belts to work for me at this point.

[freds]

See this post
Sedan seat belt hack: tilt sensor delete

[Buzz Skyline]

So it turns out that it's not the tilt sensor that was the problem. Thanks to Freds posting the manual pages for the rear seat belt operation (see entry 8 on on this thread - http://thefactoryfiveforum.com/showthread.php?16273-Sedan-seat-belt-hack-tilt-sensor-delete), it appears the problem is the child seat locking feature.

It's definitely an issue, but it's fixable. If you pull the belt all the way out, it goes into 'always locked' mode, and will ratchet in, but won't pay out, until the belt is completely rewound. Because of the mounting location of the sedan belt reel on the 818, it's not possible to rewind the belt far enough to return to the standard operation.

I've played around with my belt reels, and it appears you can disable the 'always lock' feature without changing anything else about the reel's operation. You still need to open the reel, as detailed in the "tilt sensor delete" thread (http://thefactoryfiveforum.com/showthread.php?16273-Sedan-seat-belt-hack-tilt-sensor-delete), but don't take out the tilt sensor.

You just have to set up the gears inside like this

35806

Rotate the blue gear counter-clockwise until it stops, while keeping the white wheel in the orientation shown. Then snap the cover back on without moving anything.

Test the belt by pulling it all the way out, and you should find that the 'always lock' condition doesn't kick in, but you will still be able to get the belt to lock by jerking it or by tilting the reel so that the tilt sensor activates.

By the way, this is how the gears look when the reel is in always lock mode.

35807

Man, I have spent waaaay too much time on this problem, but now I have sedan belts installed as instructed in the FFR manual, with the tilt and centrifugal reel locks retained, but no risk of the belts locking up like they did when I first installed them.

[CU9DZ]

Thanks I think I am having the same problem. In the process of storing the reel or installing it you are going to tilt it enough to set off the tilt sensor and possibly the child seat lock also. I will try reinstalling my passenger side reel this afternoon.

[tmoretta]

On my car with the same problem, I found that once the belts were sufficiently freed up to work, if I allowed the belts to retract too much (like alongside the seat backs instead of over them), they would again lockup requiring a dismount from the roll bar. I purchased a pair of seat belt limiting buttons from ebay that keep the belts from retracting too far into the reels and problem solved.

[RM1SepEx]

I gave up, bought the harness bar, worked through two sets of bolts and spacers with FFR. Bolt it in front vs back of the roll bar, cut length of the bar, delete the locknuts, etc... Now I have Scroth Rallye belts, BTW these are the only aftermarket DOT belts.

[Ajzride]

My 2006 units were setup significantly different, so I thought I would post the information here in case anyone else stumbled on to this thread.

For mine, I only had to remove the very top cover, no need to mess with the pins or removing the entire clear piece (for disabling baby-seat mode, you have to remove the whole thing if you want to disable tilt sensor).

123136

123137

What needs to be removed is the horseshoe shaped spring and the mechanism it connects to, which is in one corner.

123138

123139

Put the cap back on an enjoy a seatbelt with functioning inertia and tilt locks, but no baby seat mode.