I've been looking at seat belt details lately and noticed a few details that I'm curious if someone can confirm. If you look close at these ultra low mile examples, the seat belt receiver is a lighter grey, than the part that gets attached to the driveshaft tunnel.

Is this a discoloration/fading that occured over time, or did they come from the factory this way? Occasionally I see NOS for sale, where they do not have this color difference.

I've also noticed the part where the seat belt retracts is smooth, the NOS's on the supplier websites seem to have a rivet in the middle.

 

This is yellowing due to UV light, it's the same that happens on old electronics (computers, game consoles). Some of the dash switches on the 85-92 Firebirds have the same problem.

 

I would agree with you, I happen to be in the UV light business, or that is, keeping it out of your eyes. But the Camaro has 161 miles on it. I don't think it has seen the light of day. The Formula has 1800+ miles on it, more of a chance.........

 

Plastic parts can have different shades from the factory. They are probably molded at different times, and maybe from a different type of plastic.

 

Or perhaps just done that way on purpose? Here's a close up of what I'm asking about on the coloration

 

Not sure if it was on purpose or just a lack of concern for how it matches. IIRC - my 27K mile TTA has seatbelt receivers that don't match well too.
Edit - I checked mine. They are a closer match then the ones you have pictured, but still a shade off.

 

How does it look under the sleeve ?

 

Are we really ignoring the pink, chalky release button? It's obvious the car in question has had discoloration with age.

I couldn't begin to count how many sets of gray seatbelts I've had pass through my stash. 99% of them matched closer than the ones in the example. Part of the reason for the mismatch is that they're different kinds of plastic, one has turned brown while the other hasn't. The discoloration of plastic also can occur without exposure to natural light.

It stinks, but the parts just need to be cleaned carefully and painted to match.

 

All 4 of my third gen cars have two tone. My guess is that if it is not due to UV then it might be due to the parts being of different material. The receiver is rigid plastic and the collar sleeve much softer. perhaps they were made in different places and shipped to the final assembly point.

 

Yes, I did notice that. If you look close at the Formula, its bright red. However, that doesn't mean he didn't have the recall procedure implemented. The Formula is a hardtop, so it was less likely to get direct UV exposure and yet, still the grey discoloration exists.

Please send us some photos of Factory seat belts that actually match. Would love to see them.

 

You keep bringing up UV exposure, but plastic will discolor with age just from exposure to oxygen.



I've been involved with these cars since 1995. I've owned about a dozen, and traded in parts of many more. In all that time I only remember one set of gray seatbelts with a discolored receiver. While I have some pics from the late 90s/early 2000s, they aren't really conclusive since the focus isn't on the seat belts, and the quality isn't that great. The above photo is a pretty good example of circa 2000 digital quality.

I checked my 91 Formula just because. It has some degree of discoloration of the seat belt receiver. I can tell you the discoloration wasn't that bad 15 years ago, or I would have replaced them with NOS parts like several other interior parts with cosmetic issues that I replaced. Again this is a car that's been covered, and garaged since I've had it. Also the release button has only just recently fogged up.



The discoloration isn't as bad in person as it looks in the pic. Part of the issue is that the hard plastic receiver and the soft plastic sleeve have different textures, so they reflect light differently. The rest is because the two different plastics have aged differently.

 

Someone else brought up UV, and its pretty well known that UV light will discolor just about anything, so its definitely something to consider. If oxygen is the factor, the issue should also show up in NOS parts if they used the same manufacturer. That may tell us that NOS is not really NOS, or at least not built using same production methods/materials. Photo's of factory seat belts that don't exhibit this issue/feature would certainly help resolve the question.

 

NOS isn't always NOS. GM continued manufacturing some parts for several years after production ended. Common popular parts that remained in demand were produced longer. Something like a seat belt that was the subject of a recall would have been in production for a longer period. So you could have an NOS seat belt manufactured in 1984, or 2004. Some variance is to be expected. GM knew this, example the "paint to match" note in the parts computer for all kinds of parts that were only ever available in one color. At one point, back when a person could still order the Firebird cup holder/map pockets from the dealer, all the driver's side cup holders in 82 Gray were several shades too light. Meanwhile the passenger's side cup holders were the correct shade of gray.



It's not the best pic, but this set of seat belts I sold a decade ago look like they match pretty good.

 

That make sense. Ya, the photos are pretty hard to tell if they matched. They do point out another question I had - the rivets in the retractor cover. I don't seem to see those on factory cars, but I do see them in "NOS" parts.

 

You don't see the rivets on factory cars because they face the seats. The rivet is all that holds the plastic cover on the mechanism.







To the best of my knowledge, all of the above are OE. The ones in the disassembled car were in my 86 Trans Am, the rest are most likely from a variety of 91s...
Also found a better comparison of the NOS cup holder in the wrong shade of gray...



I've got a few thousand pictures that were on a hard drive that crashed. I was able to recover quite a few, but all of the filenames, dates, and folder locations where they were organized were lost in the process. So it's a bit hard to find anything on demand.