[DeTomaso] Seat Belt Retraction Fix

[Sean Keane]

I've been fighting a failed seat belt retractor on the passenger side of 
my Pantera for a few weeks. I finally fixed it, although it took me a 
while to figure out an optimal fix. I'll forego descriptions of the 
several attempts I made to fix the broken unit, since those were 
unsuccessful, but believe me I tried. I was unable to get replacement 
units from the Pantera vendors I called, and if they had been in stock, 
they would have been very expensive. Here's what worked:

I bought what looked to be high quality new seat belt units for $50 a 
pair on eBay (they are also available through Walmart online.) The ones 
I happened to get were for a Jeep Wrangler, but all I was really looking 
for was retractor units that had the same general form factor as the 
broken unit from the rocker panel of the Pantera. My hope was to be able 
to remove the part that houses the spring and replace the broken part on 
the existing unit. I couldn't just replace the whole assembly because 
the seat belt itself was different (both the size of the buckle tab and 
the ordering of the buckle and the anchors points), and I couldn't get 
the end through the slot in the plate that bolts to the floor. I started 
by tearing apart the new unit I bought that went on the driver's side, 
since I didn't need that one. I discovered that I could indeed get the 
spring part off, but I had two problems. First, I wasn't completely 
confident that I hadn't weakened the part in the course of prying it 
off. Second, adapting it mechanically was going to be a lot harder than 
I had hoped.

Fooling around with the new unit and the broken unit led to the answer. 
By fully extending the belt on the old unit, I was able to pull the end 
of the belt up out of the slot in the spool and remove a plastic rod 
that locks it into place. Then, I could pull the belt through the spool 
and off of the old unit. It was already through the slot in the metal 
floor plate, but I could have easily threaded it through there now if 
needed. Then, I did the same thing on the new unit, holding the tension 
on the spool once I removed the new (incorrect) seat belt. Then it was a 
simple matter of threading the old seat belt through the slot in the 
spool, inserting the plastic rod, slotting it back into the spool where 
it locked into place, and letting the spring retract the belt. The 
retractor then got bolted to the floor plate, the floor plate got bolted 
to the floor, and the other end of the seat belt got bolted to the 
bulkhead. It works like a champ.

This new unit looks way better made than the one I replaced, so I 
believe it will last a long time. As with many of these projects, what 
took hours to puzzle out only took about 10 minutes to execute, once the 
solution was understood. Here's what I learned from this exercise:

1. Don't try to fix the old unit.

2. Replace the entire retraction mechanism, not just the part with the 
spring in it.

3. Seat belts are easy to swap between retractors once you understand 
how they are attached to the spool, which also lets you thread them 
through the slot in the floor plate.

4. Be ready to attach the old belt to the new retractor once the new 
belt is removed, and don't let off of the spring tension in the 
retractor between those two operations.

Maybe this is obvious to everyone else, but it wasn't obvious to me. I 
hope this description helps someone else who has the same problem.

Best Regards,

Sean Keane