Removal of front seat belts - side trim ?

[Ian.G]

Howdy hachi buddies

I am in the process of totally removing the seatbelts from my car as I no longer need them - I have proper 4 point harnesses so I'd like to save a bit of weight (all be it not very much).

removing the floor based fixtures is not a problem - 2 x 14mm bolts and hey presto. Removing the fixing from the b-pillar is also another 14mm bolt - and then removing the actual belt intertia locking mechanism is another 2 x 14mm bolts.

The question I have is how do I get the seatbelt itself through the side trim where it normally comes through into the interior ? I can obviously cut the side trim with a small blade and feed the belt through but I would prefer not to do this in case the parts are useful to somebody in the future.

[Knudsen]

Im pretty sure, the sidetrim sits with small clips... As i remember it, i first took of the little plate around the belt (where it goes inside the trim) an then popped the sidetrim out...
But im sure Banpei know how to du it, he bought and installed a set of seatbelts i had laying around.

[banpei]

Knudsen Wrote:Im pretty sure, the sidetrim sits with small clips... As i remember it, i first took of the little plate around the belt (where it goes inside the trim) an then popped the sidetrim out...
But im sure Banpei know how to du it, he bought and installed a set of seatbelts i had laying around.

I haven't removed them since the seatbelts I got from you still had the little plates, so all I had to do was just replace the whole thing. But I can have a look how to remove them from the ones I removed from my car.

[Ian.G]

If you could banpei that would ge great. I am not a big fan and smashing/cutting/chopping things unless I absolutely have to.

[Ian.G]

Quick update guys,

as mentioned above the seatbeat runs through a separate plastic plate held to the side of the car with 2 screws. I hadn't realised this until yesterday. I just removed these screws and the whole thing came out.

thanks for pointing that out to me - just goes to show it pays to work in daylight so you can see what you are doing.

Ian

[banpei]

I've tried to remove my old seatbelts from the plastic plate without damaging them, but unfortunately I couldn't. The eye which you use to fasten the seatbelt to the floor of the car is a bit too big. So my guess is you only can remove the belt from the plate by damaging the seatbelt.

[TRUENO><ONEURT]

How would you go about filling the hole where the bet used to come through?

Epox putty?

[banpei]

What about nothing?

[TRUENO><ONEURT]

What do you mean?

Leave a hole in the side of the interior?

[Ivan141]

If it is what I think it is, it's a very small piece of plastic where the belt comes though the panel. You can slot it to remove the belt, do it in a place where it wont damage the belt when you put it back and there should be no problem.
Otherwise epoxy is a bitch to work with, I find a soldering iron works best for joining pieces of plastic.. just weld the sucker back together, maybe add some extra plastic from the back to strengthen it, the outside can be filled and painted, or left alone.