Visit a busy auto repair/upholstery shop and buy up enough webbing to re-do all the seat belts. Use rivets to close off the ends as sewing up is too much work.

Cleaning existing seat belts may weaken the fabric depending on chemicals used and how.

BTW, how are your front seat cushions sprung?

George Dill

 

I don't think I will be using upholstery webbing or rivets for my seat belt solution! A little too much like the Beverly HillBillys solution to occupant restraint!

My front seat cushions have the metal grill with external springs style support rather than the webbing style support.

 

A year to the day later and I still have not dealt with my seat belt issue. My retraction mechanism is not that smooth so I was thinking about replacing the complete belt assembly rather than just getting it re webbed. I would then take the original male buckle off of the existing belt and have it sewn on to the new belt so that I could retain the existing female end between the seats.

Has anybody replaced their existing inertia reel belts on their 142 and did the reel mechanism fit behind the plastic cover without modification? How about the shoulder loop mount on the B pillar. Were there any problems with that?

To George's suggestion, I did visit some local upholstery shops; however, none of them sold seat belt webbing or the seat belt specific rivets.

 

Hi Neil,

I've changed several betls for several of my volvo's. I just went to the crapyard and bought belts from rotten cars, never buy from crash cars as you don't know how much force came on the belts. Then I simply changed the buckles from the old belts to the new ones. If you buy belts, think about the lenght. For a two door coach you need longer ones than for a 4 doors coach.

Regards,

Mathieu.

 

I have a link to some eBay ones if you're interested, they work great, i'm not sure if they would fit behind the plastic cover, but they are great quality (even though they are from China) and they only cost about $30 a piece including shipping. I've fitted them in my 122, just ordered up more for the back seats. I will use them on my 164 too if I need to.

 

Mathieu:

I know for sure that there are no auto salvage yards with 140 parts within a 300 km radius. The closest salvage yard that I know of that specializes in Volvo parts is about 2000 km away. Last time I checked with them their selection of 140 parts was lean / non existent. In North America, the 140 does not have the same level of parts support that the 120 and 1800 series enjoy.

Aidan:

I would be interested in the link. Cost is not a huge issue. New 3 point inertia reel belts fabricated in the US (probably with Chinese parts!) are available for $70 or less and you can custom order the web length. The big issue for me is ensuring that the retractor reel fits behind the cover. If I have to remove the cover to fit the retractor reel, that is going to look really ugly.

Neil

 

Here you go:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/221039320884?_trksid=p2059210.m2749.l2649&ssPageName=STRK%3AMEBIDX%3AIT

Hopefully the link works. And before haters go and hate, I have these in my 122 and the quality is amazing. I had them professionally tested and they are legit!

 

With measurements:


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Excellent! The link also showed some other possible options. At those prices, its a pretty low risk venture. If the guy who did my upholstery work can re stitch the webbing on the belt, I might try one and have him swap the buckle and B pillar mount from my old belt to the new belt. I will have to try and get out to his shop next week to quiz him as to whether he has a suitably robust sewing machine.

Four more dimensions if possible. The total length of the belt. The width of the belt. The depth (thickness?) of the retractor. The dimension from the center of the mounting hole to the top of the retractor (looks to be about 3" in your second photo.

 

So I have another one in transit from China right now, as soon as it gets here I'll take those measurements for you.

 

I appreciate that. No rush. The 'Siberian whatever they call it' modification of the jet stream has moved west and portions of Saskatchewan have fallen into the same section of the deep freezer as Eastern Canada and the US. I won't be going out to look at the car any time soon!

 

I bought complete new belts and reels from VP Autoparts. The retractors fit in the door cavity, but you need to remove and bucket that normally encloses the reel. The new reel doesn't clear it properly. But with the bucket removed it fits.

But that leaves you with the wrong buckle that won't fit the original anchor on the drive tunnel. The belt kit comes with a new compatible anchor that you use in place of the original one.

If you find a place that will unstitch a belt, swap the buckle, then restitch, I'd be real interested to hear about it. Around here everyone it too afraid of the stinkin' lawyers and they won't touch a seat belt. I'd love to get my original anchors back in the car.

 

When you said the bucket would no longer fit with the new inertia reel, did you mean part #20 in the parts diagram? That might be a problem for me as I have that body panel stuffed with 3M acoustic and part #20 keeps the acoustic from getting into the reel mechanism.



I believe that Seatbelt Planet will pull sew your old buckles on; but, they do that as part of putting in new webbing. They might be willing to do a buckle transplant on your new belts; but, I expect it would not be cheap.

 

Yes, with the new reel, #20 has to be removed and left out of the assembly. At least that was the case with the replacement belts that I got. And #13 had to be removed and replaced with anchors/receivers that came with the new belt assemblies.

I'd really like to put #13 back in my car, but that requires using the old buckle, and there is no way to get it on the new belt without un-stitching the web then re-stitching. I'll check out Seatbelt Planet. Thanks for the pointer.

 

Removing part #20 is a non starter for me as I don't want to yank out all the sound absorption material in the body cavity. I will be interested to hear how it goes with Seatbelt Planet. If you have good results from them I might pursue them as an option. There is also another company that specializes in seatbelt restoration called Snakeoyl . However, I have a hard time getting past their name!

 

I can have a look for you in the Netherlands, should be possible to sourse some genuine belts. But I'll be onboard a vessel for the next 4 weeks so you have to be a bit patient.

Best regards,

Mathieu.

 

Mathieu:

Thanks. It was -31 C here this morning so I won't be working on the car in the immediate future.

Neil

 

Glad I saw this thread. I'll need to do this at some point also and using generic receivers is a no go for me. I believe the webbing to be the east part however my retractors are starting to give me problems and that's where I stopped my search for a feasible alternative. I don't know if the 200 series shared a similar type retractor with the 100?

 

Does anyone of knows the part number from a seatbelt for a pre-73 142?

athieu.

 

Mathieu:

The parts manual lists a couple of different styles of belts for my 1971 142. The part # for the inertia reel style seat belts for the front seats is 1210534. There are non inertia reel belts shown with different numbers. The original inertia reel belt is out of production as far as I can tell.

Neil

 

Bringing up an older thread, but I had nasty frayed front seat belts in my 73 142, and found this place: http://www.safetyrestore.com/
I sent mine in and they replaced the belt material, used all of the original hardware / inertia reel, and even used the original belt's part number / date tag.
I just got them back yesterday and haven't had a chance to put them back in, but they look great. I may remove the rears and send them off to them so they all match.
Just wanted to get a "head's up" out there if anyone is still looking for an option.
Steve

 

I've been looking at getting the webbing replaced on mine but this weekend the driver side pre-tensioner took a crap. Will this place repair broken tensioners or is this a webbing only replacement service?

 

That is good to know as I haven't dealt with this issue yet.

 

Have you looked at how the belt is attached at the inertia reel end? If it's like modern cars at all, it's removable and all the hardware is also removable, except for the anchor at the other end. I have a few photos showing how the belt is attached on my 01 V70, and my 04 C70 was the same:

Basically once you push the belt out of the reel, and push that pin out, it folds flat and can be fully removed from the reel and all hardware. This would allow you to put a modern belt from a junkyard car in yours with minimal labor. Just don't let go of that reel once it's all the way out like that!

Basically if you grab a couple passenger side belts you'll have some that weren't used much, and more likely to not be on a person in a crash.

 

I did extend my belts fully when I cleaned the webbing. I don't recall the specifics; but, that attachment mechanism is not ringing a bell for me. That said, my primary interest in the rebuild services is that I really want to retain the original center buckle arrangement on the 1971 142. If I was prepared to change the center buckle arrangement there are a lot of inertia reel 3 point harnesses that I could retrofit to the car, probably for less money than having the belt mechanism re webbed.

I thought about buying a new belt mechanism and just having the buckle end replaced with the old buckle off of my existing belt; however, none of the upholstery shops wanted to touch the job.

 

The place I mentioned did my for $150 for the pair. It's more than the replacement belts I think, but the buckle is the original and they even reattached the original tags.

 

So the response back from safetyrestore is that they do no mechanical repairs for that year, make and model, etc. So it looks like that's a wash.

 

I can understand that they probably don't want to try mechanical repairs on old inertia reels; however, do they not offer any inertia reel replacements?

When I cleaned my belts, I popped the cover off the side of my inertia reel to see if there was any fuzz or other stuff that needed cleaning out. The coiled spring under the cover popped out while I was doing this. I was able to get it back together; but, I suspect that I didn't get the requisite number of turns back on the spring and as a result the belt retraction function is a little 'tired'. The locking mechanism which is the important part works just fine; however, I was thinking that it would be nice to get the reel replaced at the same time it was re webbed if they offered replacement inertia reels.

update - a quick check on their webstite looks like no deal on replacement inertia reels.

 

I had looked at ssnake oyl. They do seatbelt restoration and custom products and was going to quiz them about the cost to make up a new belt with my hardware. The big issue for me would be whether their retractor reel would fit in the same space as the Volvo retractor reel since I need to retain that internal cover in the door cavity. Seatbelt planet does re webbing; but, I don't know if they will do retractor replacements.

http://www.ssnake-oyl.com/mm5/merchant.mvc?Screen=CTGY&Store_Code=Ssnake-Oyl&Category_Code=CSB

 

Alright, here is what I have found. I pulled out the spare inertia reel that was in my Scout and compared it to the Volvo inertia reel. Here is the part that I am comparing for reference.

http://www.seatbeltsplus.com/product/WSCH14134C-12.html

Dimensions for the Old reel:

2 - 13/16" tall
3 - 1/2" wide
3 - 3/16" long

New reel measured from link posted:

2 - 1/2" tall
3 - 1/2" wide
3 - 1/4" long

The one I have fits perfectly under the cover. The base has the exact same bolt size as the original with only one noticeable difference. It appears that the base on the old reel has a circular recess where it slides into a raised section opposite of the mounting hole at the bottom of the base. I can't see how this would cause an issue once it is tightened down inside the cover. The old reel is significantly taller than the reel that I have and from looking at pictures most other reels are about the same size as the newer one that I have. Looks like the only question is getting the buckle swapped out but it looks like that has already been done so maybe this is the answer.

Thoughts?

*Also, the webbing is the same width between the old Volvo belts and the one I have listed.

 

Also, looks like Lloyd was right in his post. If you have the patience you should be able to transfer the buckle to the new webbing once you remove the pin. I tried to do this on my inertia reel but it was replaced for a reason, the housing is cracked so it spins inside the black plastic reel making it impossible to reel it all the way up while keeping the slot aligned in the housing. Had my reel been new it would be back together right now as I was able to get the buckle on the new webbing. Just need to pay attention to how everything is aligned.