Seat belt retraction

[d3ady]

Hi
Has anyone solved the problem of seat belts not fully retracting? Have mine out of my 73 charger, but not sure how to adjust! Any ideas and instruction welcomed.

[odzking]

Well, my 73 did the same thing. What I did was pulled the belt out as far as i could, and WD40 on the innards. Exercise it, then once it goes in, do a little more.
Just be careful not to soak the belt itself. Not that it will hurt it, but it will discolor it a bit.
They just get dirt and junk in them for the most part. Only other thing to go wrong is the mechanism. If that is bad you'll know right away.

[d3ady]

Belts seem to work ok other than lazy retraction. I have seen people 'over-wind' seat belts, but am nervous to dismantle mine with the seat belt switch on one side.
Will try WD40 first to see if it helps.
Thanks

[odzking]

You do have to remove it from the car to get to the back side of it.
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[d3ady]

Just catching up. I removed belts and drilled rivets out of cover. Scraped out plenty of rust and then used WD40. Belts work like new and fabric dye makes them look new. Thanks for advise.

[1ol74charger4me]

In case somebody looks at this later I would add if you hold the belt upside down after taking it out of the car and pull out the belt several times, you may be amazed at how much dirt and stuff fall out of the windings of seat belt. I once took a dime out of a lazy retractor. How did you do the fabric dye BTW?

[Bob]

How many of us remember this from 40 or more years ago?

"Who drug that seat belt out of that crack back there? Stuff that thing back down in there before it flies around and kills somebody!"

And that explains a lot of the gunk that ends up in the retracter, retractur, wind-up-thingee.

Close relatives of the same stuff that lives and breeds in the living room couch crack.