Seat belts

I ordered new vintage style three point seat belts at cip1.com for $30 each. They are non-retractable and I wanted to make them retractable by using the belts I already have. I started by cutting off the belt's metal piece.



Here it all is, disassembled. The first time I took it apart the spring unraveled in my face.



The pin goes through the spool and the belt around the pin. I left a little stub where it was stitched together so it couldn't pull through the pin and I wouldn't need to stitch an overlap myself.



Here the pin is through the spool and mount bracket, the black plastic is the spring and it goes on the top of the pin.



The shiny metal piece disengages the lock when the strap is wrapped fully around the spool and it needed a little adjusting. The spool was sticky but with a little white grease spray it retracted really smoothly.



I'll admit that I had to disassemble the whole thing five times on the first belt because it was backwards or I forgot to put the plastic on or both but the second time it went quickly and I only assembled it backwards once.



Well here it is and it looks pretty good all retracted and everything. It was a simple project and only took an hour (because of screw-ups) but I saved at least $100.