My driver side seat belt retractor DOES NOT retract at all. It basically renders my seat belt useless. Now my question is, how do I go about repairing or replacing this? I pulled the headliner and can see the part that is supposed to reel the belt back in. Now can I simply purchase and replace the piece behind the headliner or do I need to purchase the whole assembly that connects to the grey box thing next to the door?

 

Come on guys.... Somebodys gotta be able to help! I dont wanna die before I figure this out!!!!

 

if you can still get them (not saying you can) you will have to replace the whole thing. that seems to have been an ever present problem with the thirdgens was that the seat belts would just quit working.. there were recalls on it in the early thirdgens. but GM likes to pick a choose VIN numbers that were under the recall (my 83 has that problem with BOTH seatbelts.. and was supposedly under the recall.... so I went in and after 4 ours of them screwing around they fanilly come back and tell me that no. we are sorry. but your car is not under the recall...) Anyhow.. I figure that they never used all of the retractors or got rid of the defective ones. just stashed them away and threw them in cars here and there to spread them out in order to save money.

There have been a few writeups of how to put 4th gen belts into a thirdgen (retractors and such) That might be the way you want to do it.. it is newer, and you know that they will work.. No one actually carries stock replacement retractors for the thirdgen that i can find.. Even calling GM I get sent in circles through thier phone system between people, and then finally they just gave me a list of people who still make parts for the third gen.. (like year one and such) and none of them had any either. Alot like the Dashpad... there was only one brand new one in the dealer parts system left a year ago.

 

One way to go is swapping one out of the junkyard, if you don't mind doing that. That was a dealer item, but as stated you could possibly get an aftermarket version of the spring loaded retractor.

 

Im thinking about maybe trying to fix the retractor iself, and if that doesnt work.... I think they have used seatbelt assemblies over at hawks thirdgen parts for around 150. But that seems like a lot of money for a used seat belt setup that, even when new.... JUST SUCKS!!! I really aint sure what to do if I cant fix the retractor itself. I dont really wanna go though the hassle to throw a 4th gen setup in and I dont want to spend 150 bucks or even 20 bucks on some parts that are just gonna crap out on me again. There has to be a better way!