junk yard seat belts

I pulled some beautiful 3 point seat belts out of a range rover or a land cruiser, didn't pay enough attention to know which one, and they worked great when I tested themin the car. Now that I have them home I realized as I was trying to measure and place them in my car that they no longer retract. Unfortunately I opened the side of one to see if there is a lock or hitch or something that gets triggered when they are not in place, but all I did was let the coil out, darn what a mess!
Can anyone tell me how to get these things to work?!? Thanks <!--POLLS--><!--FILES-->

 

This is how most retractable belts work you have to hold it in the same postion it is mounted in the car,then slowly pull on the belt,some times if you can let it in alittle then slowly pull,it may take several tries to get it. Virginia HAM ber too!

 

There is a swinging weight that locks the belt in an accident. That weight must be centered for the belt to pull out or retract. It will lock if it either leans left, or right, or forward, or reverse. The retracter assembly has to be positioned in the same position as it was in the original car.

If you unwound the coil, you will likely have to replace the assembly, they are a pita to rewind. Gene

 

3 Easy steps:
1. Play with the ones you took apart to learn how the Lock mechanism works and how they retract, and how they are supposed to be mounted to work (some mount horizontal, some are verticle), trying to re-wind them but failing.
2. Toss them in the trash.
3. Go back to Junk yard and get another set. Dont forget to grumble at yourself all the way there for learning the hard way!

 

DIRK35, POSTED

3 Easy steps:
1. Play with the ones you took apart to learn how the Lock mechanism works and how they retract, and how they are supposed to be mounted to work (some mount horizontal, some are vertical), trying to re-wind them but failing.
2. Toss them in the trash.
3. Go back to Junk yard and get another set. Dont forget to grumble at yourself all the way there for learning the hard way!
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You forgot
Number four....

Check the expiration date ....
seat beats can fail if the are to old!

 

Geeze, you're right, so ridiculous. I also did a few searches on google and found the answer. Holding it in its installed position works no problem. Whish I hadn't been so hasety in tearing that one apart. I hope I can get it back together otherwise I guess I'll have to go to another junk yard.

 

You also need to be careful not to remove / re-use belts that have been in use while in an accident.

On newer cars (ones with airbags) the belt retractors have pretensioners in them. The pretensioners fire milliseconds prior to the airbags deploying to keep the driver / passenger from moving too far forward into the bags' paths.

If the belts were in use in an accident, they will no longer function correctly. Even the normal catches can fail after the pretensioners are fired.

Just FYI.

- RBR

 

When removing seat belts from a donor vehicle, always make a drawing showing relationship of belt mountings to each other vertically and horizontally and measurements of all critical points, and capture all mounting hardware possible, brackets, bolts, washers, spacers etc.

 

I don't think it was in an accident, I don't remember seeing any damage but then again I wasn't really looking for it either but all five doors opened fine so I don't think it was.
Does anyone have any advice for puting the one belt back together? the coil seems to go in three directions, well two but one twice. when I started untangling it and rolling it back up it was rolling clockwise then turned into conterclockwise and then I think the last part if I had kept going would have been clockwise again. any ideas or do I need to just replace it?
Thanks