Seat Belt Question - No Inertia Feature?

[tucsonjwt]

On my 83 C20, the seat belts do not tighten up when I yank on them. On all other vehicles with shoulder belts I have owned, yanking on the belt causes the belt to tighten. Is this normal? Since both belts act the same way I wonder if this is the way they are supposed to (non)function. This does not seem to afford much protection in the event of a crash.

[78 Chevyrado]

Maybe they're hanging up. mine in my 78 do it, and a lot of times they do it at bad times and can be really irritating. at some point I had to take the cover off my retractors and clean it all out and relube everything. then I was golden.

[camshaftgsxr]

they only work on inertia, its time for new belts before you wrap your teeth around the steering wheel and your passenger head butts the dash

[tucsonjwt]

The belts are not hanging up - they pull out smoothly all the way to the end of the belt. I don't know how seat belts go bad - does the lock mechanism break and is it repairable? It seems that this should be a simple fix, and since the belts themselves are in good shape I would like to try to save them.

[78 Chevyrado]

inside the retractor there's a pendulum and a mechanism to lock it when you snatch the belt hard. In mine, the grease on those parts had hardened and wouldn't let those mechanisms move. when i cleaned it and re-greased em they moved freely and worked again.

These mechanisms don't have anything to do with the belt pulling out smoothly or not.

[tucsonjwt]

Thanks rado. I will get out the socket set again and give it a look see.

[tucsonjwt]

Did you have to drill out the rivets and remove the plastic cover to work on it? Also, I see two round white plastic covers inside (one for upper and one for lower tension?) - those appear to have steel springs inside - did you have to remove those covers also?