So I feel like I was fed a heaping helping of BS yesterday during my annual inspection.

I need to know from some of the original owners how the seat belt is supposed to work. Yea, I know that sounds stupid, but I am fairly certain mine are working the way they should have in 1988. With the exception of the "lazy" retraction that these trucks are known for, and the receiver button is a little sloppy, but I think I can fix that.

The part that he said it failed for is it doesn't lock in place. At first he tried just yanking on it real hard and fast to see if it would catch. "See, it no work." I know more modern belts do this in certain makes, but as far as I know these only lock when you slam the brakes. I tried to tell him that, and he went out in the parking lot, drove ~20ft and hit the brakes. Well it didn't lock, but I don't think that is far/fast enough. Today I stood on the brake pedal twice on the way to work just to test. Both times ~40+mph and the belt locked just fine. At slow speeds it doesn't lock, but hit the brakes hard enough and it will. Is this not the way they are supposed to work?

If not, what is the best place to get replacements?

At this point he started piling on more excuses for why it should fail, like the p/s pump squeals like a pig at start up, there was less than a fraction of a mm of movement in the LF wheel bearings, and no sun visors. The p/s pump is new and was making noise right out of the box, so I have another one just waiting to take it's place, the guy was shaking the LF wheel so bad the whole truck was rocking on the lift, and yea, I took the visors down a long time ago with the intention of dropping the headliner to replace the fabric that is all ripped up.

 

I can't recall, and so I wouldn't have thought, that the seatbelts 20 years ago had Emergency Lock Retractors. And even so, I doubt they worked the same way back then as they do now.

FWIW, here's a description from a '98 Ford Manual of how the present day ELR system works:

Sounds like you got a jerk for an inspector, in any case.

 

Yea...... I think that is way more sophisticated than the belts in an 83' to 92'. As far as I know, they are just a basic 3pt belt that locks the "ratchet" part of the shoulder belt when the brakes are hit. Now what tells the belt to lock? IDK. I don't think it is anything too complicated.

I tried LMC Truck, but all they have are 2pt lap belts. I asked them what the heck good are those as a "OE style replacement"? That is not even close to being a "replacement" belt.

Does anyone know where Doc (sp? username) aka - Kevin at Jones Brothers Auto is? I tried the old web address I had for them and it doesn't work.

 

I just tried the belts in my 94 Ranger, both just standing outside the truck and pulling and sitting in the seat with the belt on. If I really yank on the belt it will catch about 90% of the time. Then went over to my 90 Honda and tried the same thing, no matter how hard I yanked they would never catch, this is a 59k car that has never been messed with so based on this your belts are probally working correctly.

If I see my neighbor this evening I'll ask him, he is a VA state emissions/safety inspector and will know.

HAve a feeling what may have happened is you found a inspector that just doesn't know how the older cars were set up. I ran into this when I still had my 65 Rambler on regular tags.

Shops would fail me for having wipers that didn't work, they are the old vacum operated ones and the car needs to be running for them to work, and parking lights not working, well till at least the mid 60's when you turned on the headlights the parking lights would go out. Last time it happened the guy was such a jerk about it I ended up calling the state police, who happen to check up on these guys, to report this idiot. Had to go back to the station with the state boy and once he educated the guy by having him look up the info in his state issued manual the car passed. Oh and that inspecter was fined and had his license suspended for 30 or 45 days.

 

This was a bit nit-picky to rag me about the belts, but it wasn't much use to argue with him. My passenger's side belt has been used about 15% as much as the driver's and I can play tug-a-war with it and it doesn't catch. I also remember when I went to a child-seat safety class and they pointed out that some belts "ratchet" and others are "free wheel'n" like the Ford ones. They just didn't want you to strap the car seat in with these types unless you use the special belt stop that keeps the belt tight.

I am trying to see if I can get a cheap belt from a newer Ranger that is a different color so he can't say I didn't change it. The guy is a knowledgeable mechanic, but he is more familiar with imports. He is an older Korean that was the 1st mechanic hired at the Acura dealership that I bought my Integra at back in 92'.

The other ironic thing was he looked all over the truck, but didn't even take the wheels off to look at the brakes. He noticed all the newer hardware, like e-brake cables, ss hard lines, and speed bleeders, so he just assumed the brakes are all good. They are, but he didn't take my word for everything. He made the comment "it looks like you have spent a lot of $$$ on this, and it looks like you know what you are doing". So then when I try and explain that certain things came from the factory that way, and that my p/s pump was not squealing due to a loose belt, it was a faulty new pump he didn't want to listen. He insisted it was the belt, and I told him it is a serpentine belt and it is well with in speck with minimal deflection. So then he pops the hood and pulls on it where it doesn't move much at all and still says "see, it too loose here". Ok, what ever you say dude.

seadoo - thanks for asking the neighbor. Let me know what he says.

 

It would seem unlikely that both seatbelts would have the same "malfunction", esp since one gets way less use.

 

bcjim - I would agree. I have tested both sides and they work the same way. The passenger's side looks practically new since it has barely been used.
seadoo - Any luck with the neighbor? Thanks.

I have found a few OE belts from some 91-92 Rangers listed at junkyards for fairly cheap, and then I found what looks like the exact same design as the OE on this web site: http://www.gotbelts.com/lapacshbe.html I think black is the only choice but who cares.

As for Kevin at Jones Bros, I found an old posting of my own that had their # in it for anyone that cares 1 866 397-5671, but they have crushed A LOT of things that were 12-15yr old.

 

Haven't seen him yet, hoping to run into him this evening before we head out, if not I will see him this weekend, probally tomorrow when he gets off work.

 

Finally got ahold of my neighbor. He said a lot of the older seat belts work that way, his daughters 89 Chrysler does the same thing, said as long as they latch it should have passed. As far as the belt noise on start up he laughed at that one. Wheel bearings he wouldn't have failed with that little movement but would have mentioned to keep an eye on them. No sunvisors he would have failed for that, unless he saw them laying in the truck.

He's been an inspector for over 20 years so I pretty much take what he says as being correct. He said it sounds like you have a found a overly cautious inspector, who might be interperting the rules a bit to hard