Photo Essay - Cleaning Seat Belts

[PhilMeUp]

The seat belt in my taxi is now 14 months old and isn’t retracting as quickly as I would like. This happens when grime builds up on the seat belt webbing and in the plastic guide.

The seat belt in another (unlicenced) car of mine is also extremely slow to retract. I need to get this fixed for its licencing inspection.

I started by removing the taxi seat belt. The Falcon seat belts won’t unwind once removed from the car, so before doing so I pulled the seat belt out as far as possible and put some lock pliers on the base to prevent it from retracting. If you have’t got lock pliers then just use normal pliers and a zip-tie to hold them shut.



Going over the belt with a high pressure water sprayer made quite a difference.



Once I had cleaned the belt I sat down with a towel to wipe the excess water off the belt. The webbing is fairly water resistant, so was almost dry after doing this.



I cleaned the plastics.



I had a go at cleaning the plastic guide with eucalyptus oil and cotton sticks. You could do this if you are unable to remove the belt from the car (eg don’t have a Torx T50 socket).



And then I realised that there was a better way of cleaning the plastic guide. I removed the plastic guide from the height adjusting mechanism. This required a Torx T50 socket (which is also used for removing the seats). By now I had three bolts that looked similar, so I put that one back in place to ensure that I didn’t confuse it with one of the others.



This grime contributes to slowing down the seat belt retraction.



I put the plastic guide on the ground and gave it a thorough blast with high pressure water.



Later that night I decided to clean the seat belt in another Falcon and figured out a slightly easier way of doing this. I started by removing the upper plastic, which is done by reaching behind it and pulling it outward. The plastic will unclip and come loose.



I then removed the two Philips head screws that held the lower plastic in place.



This time, I left the seat belt mechanism in place and just removed the bolt that holds the bottom seat belt mount in place.



The seat belt feeds through the upper plastic, so once the bottom mount was loose I was able to feed the mount and buckle through the hole in the plastic.



I pulled the seat belt out and put some lock pliers on to prevent it from retracting. I also removed the bolt that holds the plastic guide to the height adjuster. This required the Torx T50 socket.



Once the T50 bolt was removed I then had the seat belt loose.



The seat belt outside of the car.



Like the other two that I had previously done, the plastic guide was full of grime.



This grime slows the seat belt down when retracting.



I’ve got a high pressure water washer so was able to do this at home.



I was thorough with cleaning, including washing the edges of the seat belt webbing.



As I was doing this in the front yard, I rinsed the belt off with the hose to make sure there was no dirt on it.

[PhilMeUp]

I held the belt out tight and ran a towel back and forth to remove water.



The plastic guide was now clean.



As it was now night I couldn’t leave the belt outside to dry. I looped the seat belt around the driver’s seat, started the engine and let it idle for a while with the heater on. The seat belt webbing dried quickly.



This actually worked rather well. The seat belt in my taxi isn’t retracting quite as fast as when it was new but it’s pretty close.

Although I was able to do this at home with my own pressure washer, this can be done by anyone at a car wash. Take the required tools and clean the belt at the car wash. If it’s a warm day then the belt will dry on its own. On a wet day or at night, leave the seat belt out inside the car and then let the car heater dry it. Take something to occupy yourself - laptop, iPad, book to read, etc. Because the webbing doesn’t absorb water like normal cloth does it will dry very quickly.

This whole task is very easy to do and can be done in a matter of minutes. I’ll be doing this on each car every year or so from now on.

Don’t have a Torx T50 socket? Do a search for “Torx T50 socket” on eBay, Google, etc. Or order one of these from your local tool or hardware shop:
Teng Part Number: M121250T (1/2’ drive)
Kincrome Part Number: K2767 (1/2” drive impact socket)
AmPro Part Number: T33640 (3/8” drive)
Snap-On Part Number: FTX50E (3/8” drive)

[Pixy Angel]

another good write up mate. Is the seat next?

[PhilMeUp]

another good write up mate. Is the seat next?

The seats in the XR6T ute aren't too bad.

The seats in the FPV that I bought to replace it... are that bad...

They'll be removed and taken to a car detailer though.

[PTR_NITRO_FG]

Another great detailed tutorial!

So good how you always find the time to even label pictures with directions

Well done sir

[PhilMeUp]

One of the three seat belts that I cleaned yesterday wouldn't retract at all previously.

Today it was retracting at almost full speed.

Experiment: successful!

[EvilDaifu]

Thanks mate.  This should be a must for anybody contemplating a RWC on their T.  Here are some additional pics that others may find useful - especially position of clips when pulling things off so you don't break the clips.  Also which bolts go where (short for top and long for bottom) and pic of the actual Torx T50 socket - Supercheap Auto have a sale on until 20 Nov I think - - here's the link (was $48 now $25).  Borrowed a Gerni from my bro in law and that did the job fine as Phil says - belt dries really quickly.  Seat belts retract beautifully now

 

Spoke with Mick and its a fairly common issue when time comes for RWC checks.

 

Make room by moving the front seats forward and tilting forward.

 

Top white cover just pulls away but do it from the top where the clips are.

 

Another view of where the clips are.

 

Then you see you'll need the Torx T50 socket tool to undo the bolt that holds the sash to the side pillar.

[EvilDaifu]

Better pics of the Torx T50 tool.

 

 

Now the bolts are different lengths.  Short T50 bolt goes in the top part.   Take note of where it is positioned on the side pillor because the white cover has a circular socket that fits over this bolt when putting it back on.  That's what controls the vertical height adjustment of the seat belt on the side pillar.  (The longer T50 bolt goes down near the footwell).

 

Use Phillips head screw driver to undo the 2 screws and tilt the black cover back like so.

 

Better view of black cover from the underside.

 

Long bolt as mentioned above goes down near the footwell.  That holds the end of the seat bolt.  Undo that one as well with Torx T50.

 

Then its as the same as Phil's writeup about using high pressure water hose to clear gunk off the seat belt.  I also used dishwashing detergent and a tooth brush to get the gunk build up off the plastic bits of the seat belt where the seat belt threads through.

 

Brand new seat belt assemblies on eBay can be as much as $170 each so this can save some time and $ in getting the RWC done.  Seat belts don't retract like brand new but sufficiently fast enough after doing it.  Easy job - probably took me about 2 hours which includes drying time of the belts and re-assembly.