Seat belts

Hi everyone just a quick question is it possible to change the spring that’s in a seatbelt, mine aren’t retracting enough? I keep catching my seat belt in the door, I’ve tried to clean the seat belt as best as I can but it’s still no different


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Have you tried cleaning the whole length of the seat belt with Pledge/furniture polish?
You need to spray in onto the seat belt material and polish it off…. The Pledge/furniture polish makes the seat belt slippy so it retracts easier.

It worked on my seat belts and my wifes VW Touran.  

No I just soaked them, I’ll get some polish on them tomorrow and give that a go thanks


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Take them out of the retractor, soak them in a good pre-soak, then run them to a washerteria and wash them with about 2X the amount of soap… Ruin someone else's machine.  Then you can dry them too.  Oh place each one in a pillow case before wash and tie it shut.

You leave the metal bits where they bolt to the floor and on to the pillar, but you can take the pillar part off. If you throw a couple of pillows in the dryer that reduces the noise.

Replacing Slow Seat Belts in Cabriolet | Volkswagen Owners Club Forum

As you can see I'm still struggling to get one of the seatbelts too retract, I've soaked them in boiling hot water with washing powder and also tried pledge on them. Is there anything else I can do or is this seat belt knackered? The other one doesn't seem to be strong when retracting ????



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Try giving them a jiggle and stand them as upright as possible.

I seem to remember something about a locking ball bearing or something in there and it doesn't like being not vertical

Good luck

Ian

I’ll give that a whirl mate and see where it gets me if not I’ll just fit it on the passenger side haha


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That is the Gravity dog.

unless it is upright it don't like to disengage.

If you at the very end of the pull of the belt, it can cause the gravity dog to be bound, and not re-spool, so you have to take the cover off and manually disengage the pawl from the lock.
 

I’ll have a look at that today Brian’s thanks once again mate


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those are not mk1 golf belts, thats probably why. they're probably too long. red would be from a polo or mk3 or something

1 of them has gone in fine it’s just the other that is a bit loose, it’s like the spring isn’t tight enough to retract the seat belt fully, the one that’s fine retracts back as it should



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the belts arent sided, so short term put passenger one on driver side

Your retractor spring is toast.  Your belt is fully unspooled.

You can use my how to as to taking it apart and trying to re-tension the spring to retract, but it is easier to go to a breakers and get the rear seat belts out of a Jetta, Cabrio, or Passant, and use them to replace your current  
one, you may have to change out the Gravity dog,

I took a set out of a Cabrio (rear seat belts) and used them to replace my worn out ones on my Cabriolet.

There are companies out there that will repair your Belts. Google them and you will see… usually around 50 bucks each USD over here.

looking again, mk3/polo belts have a bare loop at the bottom so i recon these are aftermarket units, are a fair few ebay sellers who do red belts which look liek they're the same as yours anyway

and if you do decide to split them, take extra care as they like to explode everywhere

rubjonny said

and if you do decide to split them, take extra care as they like to explode everywhere

That my friend is an understatement and it is Humpty Dumpty…. Just cant get it back together again.

This is from some one who knows.

I still have my original ones could I take the spring out of them and put it in the red ones as the original ones retracted as normal


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That is a Clock spring, and it is a really really difficult thing to swap about…… so be warned.

I watched a video once of then installing the clock spring on a similar thing and it was all mechanical no hands were used but to position it in the jig.

It is like a "Slinky" and about 150 yards long as you are trying to wind it back up (ok, 10 to 12feet) and it is like climbing Mt Everest with no oxygen.
Looks easy on a map, doing it is a tad more difficult…

The edges cut your fingers like a knife, so wear gloves and that makes it more difficult, besides it is greasy grimey and slips out of your control in a millisecond so also wear safety glasses.

Haha fair enough I’ll see if there’s any seatbelt repairers around the Manchester area that can hopefully help me out if not it will be alright for now it’s on the passenger side so it won’t be any miver to me


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yep me and some mates were pullign apart a 16v, i says top him unroll those belts and cut so we can use as straps for lifting engine out.

short while later *bang, ping, ping ping* from behind me. turn round to see sheepish look on mates face