Installing 4th Gen Front Seat Belts

After installing 94 Firebird front and rear seats in my 88 IROC (a straight forward bolt in) I decided it was time to "upgrade" the seat belts. I just now got the fronts installed. Overall it was a 2 hour project. I’ll go over the install and give a few observations or gotchas where needed.

Install:
I used a fairly long handled 3/8 ratchet (seat belt bolts are torqued to over 20 ft/lbs from the factory), a 6 inch extension, a 2 inch extension, a 3/8 drive 13mm deep socket (a shallow would work…I’ve just got a deep right now), a 3/8 drive shallow 10mm socket, a 3/8 drive T47 Torx bit (this is a MUST HAVE item), a phillips head and a flat bladed screw driver.

I did the passenger side first simply because if I had to drive the car somewhere the driver side would still have belts installed that worked. At this point I’ll say you don’t have to remove the headliner but if you value it AT ALL you’ll be better off taking it out. I did not remove mine because the fabric is already pulled off and I plan to get the whole thing replaced soon. It’s not destroyed but it is in worse shape than when I started. No matter what you have to drop the rear part of the headliner down to remove and reinstall the retractor in the roof.

I took the 4 screws holding the trim along the top of the hatch out and put that piece out of the way. Next I removed the screw holding the passenger side coat hanger hook and took that and the fabric sail panel out of the car. I took the one screw in the trim behind (toward the rear of the car) the sail panel out to give me more flex in that big piece of plastic and make it easier to drop the headliner. I took the passenger side sun visor down (which I later figured out was not completely necessary) and removed the screw holding the black trim that runs vertically up the door frame at the back of the door. Next I pulled down the passenger side trim that runs across the top of the door frame and down the A pillar (again not completely necessary but you do tear up the headliner LOTS more if you don’t). BTW Does anyone know how to get those 3 clips along the top out so I can correctly re-install that trim piece?

At this point I put the 13mm socket on the long extension and took out the two bolts (front and rear) that hold the retractor assembly in place. These are interference thread bolts so it’s a little bit of work to get them out. Then I put the T47 on the long extension and removed the lower retractor assembly and took the factory belt out. The 4th gen roof retractor (the only one) bolts right in place of the factory one however the first modification comes when you go to bolt the bottom of the belt to where the floor retractor was installed. The problem is the bolt hole is horizontal and the belt bolts in vertically. I then remembered that the bracket the stock retractor bolts too is bolted into the car.

To remove that bracket you must take the trim piece off that holds the carpet in place (can’t call the name of it right now). I took out the 6 screws holding it down and removed it. It is held in by a small bolt (10 mm head) and a T47 Torx head bolt. I removed those two bolts (you’ve got to peel the carpet back almost to the point of needing to remove the seat to get to the Torx bolt) and tried to line up the 4th gen belt hole with the vertical bracket hole. Problem #2, the 4th gen belt has a plastic trim piece covering the lower part of the belt right there and the plastic runs into the floor pan keeping the holes from lining up. I trimed off the bottom 1/2 to 3/4 inch of that plastic and everything lined up. I re-used the T47 bolt that held the bracket in place but latter found a better bolt to use. The stock bracket bolt is threaded all the way from the head to the end. That allowed me to tighten up the bolt to the point the belt would not pivot. A better bolt to use is one that has a shoulder on it so the belt can pivot freely. Just such a bolt is used to hold the buckle assembly so go to the salvage yard and get a couple (or find some in a bolt shop). Now you might could just cut a small hole in the carpet and mount the lower belt external (in relation to the carpet) but I think that would require a longer bolt so I didn’t try…but it did look like a possible option.

I reinstalled the lower trim (leaving a GAPING hole where the stock retractor one was…haven’t found a way to dress that up yet but I will), and all the other pieces I had removed and moved the seat all the way forward to access the buckle bolt. The bolt is a T47 and is hidden under a cover than looks like a large phillips head screw. I used the flat bladed screw driver to pry out that cover (there is probably a better way but it worked for me) and used the T47 bit on a short extension. Speed bump #3, the 4th gen buckle has a different bend to it but it will line up and bolt into place with a little persuading.

The driver side is the same except I didn’t take down the sun visor nor did I remove the A pillar/upper trim piece. The end result was more damage to the headliner.

Notice that i didn’t remove the seats…it was not necessary. It might have made the job slightly easier but not much. Also the 4th gen front belt assemblies weigh approximately 2 pounds less each. That is taking into account the bracket I had to remove from each side.