Slightly baffled by 3 point seat belts in the back

[climberjohn]

The van needs a 3 point belt for the rear bench seat, passenger side (to attach a car seat for my 5 year old daughter.)

Being resourceful, I read various samba posts about how to best do this. Kayakwesty said that a Jetta seatbelt worked fine for him. I read too that someone pulled a passenger side front van belt and used that on the bench seat.

Being frugal, both these junkyard options of $8 each looked pretty good next to the GoWe$ty $99 model.

I found a nice belt and hardware from both a Jetta and an ’85 van from a local junkyard. The mechanism pulled and retracted smoothly when mounted in each of the donor vehicles. I unbolted both and took them home.

Initially, I tried to mount each in the “Gowesty” position, up higher on the pillar, as in this photo.

This was aesthetically not as nice as in the photo below, but the mounting would be way easier as I would not have to fabricate a metal bracket with my shortage of 1/8 plate steel and metal working skills.

Here‘s the problem and the thing that I find a bit baffling: the belts do not want to feed very well. The Jetta belt does not feed at all. (I’ve about given up on that.)

The Vanagon belt feeds out nicely when the mechanism is pointed up, just like on the original mounted position on the front 2 seats. But when I turn the reel slightly to one side, let alone try to mount it like in the first picture above, it locks up, and no amount of my finagling can cause it to release and feed.

Is the van seatbelt designed to work only when pointed in a certain direction, like up? If I am being a complete dumblefutz and missing something easy here, please let me know. I am almost ready to kick down for the $99 GoWesty model as this has been pretty frustrating, but let’s hope some Samba guru can save me from this fate.

If anyone has successfully used a van front passenger side 3 point belt on the rear benchseat, I’d love to hear how you made it work.

Thanks for any suggestions,
CJ
_________________
'86 Westy, 2.5 Subaru power
Know your limits. Exceed them often.

[ThorAlex]

The system that blocks the belt is very sensitive to what way you mount in. a little of from how it's supposed to mount and they don't work. After-market belts (the ones i had an my doka anyways) are adjustable to make them work in any position, but even then they were a real pain to get to work properly.
_________________
1990 syncro 1.6TD "Smily"

Ex-vans:
1990 Caravelle coach 1.6TD
1986 Transporter Double cab syncro 2.1 112hp

"I'm wrong so often... It's great!" - Adam Savage

[climberjohn]

Thoralex,

Thanks for your reply.
Anyone else have an idea on this? KayakWesty, maybe?

-CJ
_________________
'86 Westy, 2.5 Subaru power
Know your limits. Exceed them often.

[GWTWTLW]

Personally, I would be a little weary of getting a seatbelt out of a junkyard. I would probably bite the bullet and get a new one from GW. Your kids are too precious CJ! My $0.02 FWIW...
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89 Syncro Westy - GW 2.5, now with a double knob job
@gwtwtlw

[funagon]

[stevey88]

[j_dirge]

[climberjohn]

[Timwhy]

[syncrodoka]

I bought brand new from the dealer front D/S and P/S retractors and they still retract slowly or need help.

BTW. seatbelts have a little pendulum in them that locks them up when there is a sharp change in direction- as in a accident or roll over. Changing the angle of installation will make the seatbelt want to activate the engineered lock up feature also.

[noganav]

The belts from the back of a carat mount right in, bracket included. A friend (pianobrooks) just put some into his van this weekend and it seemed to work great for him. Mounts inside the wall, very slick.