In the middle of swapping out the seats/interior in my 83 T/A have nice set of grey cloth from a 95, but still have the tan seat belts. Finding early 3rd gen worth salvaging are getting hard to find; bottomline which years seatbelts can swapped into a 83?

 

Seatbelts from 82 - 92 are interchangeable. The grey seatbelts are still available from the dealership for about $70 - $80.00 apiece for the front seats. Not sure of the price for the rear seats.

The Trickster!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

4th gen belts will work... they are almost a direct bolt in. The top part of the 4th gen belts will bolt right in. The bottom takes alittle messing with. 4th gen belts do not have a retractor at the bottom. After removing the 3rd gen lower retractor, also unbolt the bracket that is left. You can then use that hole that is for the bracket to bolt the 4th gen belt to. You also have to swap in the female end of the belt which is again a bolt in. Ive had mine in for almost a year now and I love them. They are smooth and they actually lock up under hard braking and cornering...unlike my 3rd gen belts that almost let me hit the steering wheel once...

To cover up the ugly mess that removing the 3rd gen lower retractor leaves, you can get creative. I took the cover for the retractors and re-used them. Looks/works great.

just my two cents. I know finding nice 3rd gen belts is getting tough. But 4th gen belts are a dime a dozen. I got my full tan set for 10 bucks. Couldnt use the back belts...but still.

Justin

 

For rear belts, you're limited to using the 82-88; in 89 the rear ones became over-the-shoulder type, and have the retractors mounted on a bracket above the rear wheel wells. This change also required the use of different rear interior panels.
If a person was so inclined, they could remove the brackets and panels from a donor car, and weld the brackets in place on an older car.

 

Thanx for the input. Think i'll go with the 4th gen for the front. I was concerned that about mounting them on the original spot, but it appears no problem. Cant be any worse than my originals...they haven't retracted in 15 years.

 

Petes 84Z28 that's interesting you point that out.....i removed my rear seats and didn't like how the belts leave that rear gap so i went to the junkyard and found an 82 with the lower lap belts and a perfectly smooth pannel as how i wanted to graft it. rather then having to spend alot of hours reworking the plastic with duraglass and what have you i now can just swap the pannels and have a really smooth interior.

never knew there was a difference like that. same thing goes for the cars that have the split rear seat as the pannels are different too.

just a fun fact i thought i would share for anyone removing their rear belts out of newer cars.

 

Kandied, are those the sill plates you're referring to? The 82's won't have that cut-out to clear the 83-92 version that has the retractors, and should make for a cleaner installation of the fourth-gen front belts.

Just another tip if anyone goes with fourth-gen front belts!

 

no actually i was talking about the rear section which i know isn't really what we are discussing........look at this picture to see how there isn't the typical shoulder strap. if you remove your rear seats or want to remove the belts for a custom setup like i'm doing this saves alot of fabrication by using earlier style plastic.



however with your point i did not know about the 82. i'm considering removing my front belts since i have harnesses connected to my cage now and would like something cleaner. i'll have to look into that.

 

Ah yes...any 82-88 will be like that, except for those with split rear seatbacks which will have the small hole for the latching bolt thingy. And the 89-92 rear armrest (lower) panel won't have the holes in them for the rear lap retractors.
I haven't actually seen an 82 in about four years, so i can't recall offhand what was done for the doorsills by the anchor points, but makes sense that it would be cleaner as there were no retractors to hide.

 

Kandied91z who sells that speaker set up, or is that something custom. It looks like its plastic instead of glass.

 

no one sells anything like that....i can only assume through the knowledge i've learned in the last 6 months that the supplies alone to finish the project is a good reason why it isn't seen much. places around here will charge in excess of 4-5,000 for a similar setup and that's without the electronics so i'm working on doing my own deal.

anyone have a picture of the earlier style retention setup for the belts in the front...i'd like to see how that is handled.

 

Well its easy to do that in fiberglass it just looked like it was textured plastic. I guess it could be covered in leather. Oh well it looks good either way. I may inspire me to do something better with my subs this summer.

 

I just swappeed out my 3rd gen seat belts for a 4th gen set. I too kept my retractor cover but I am coming up a little short on creativeity on the best way to securely mount them in place.

Any suggestions? What did you do? Thanks!

 

TTT

Anyone have an answer to the question I posted above? Thanks!

 

are you talking about the cover at the bottem of the door? if so heres mine ... 4thgens look fine with no cover...