I’ve been having problems with my seat belt for a couple of months now. It won’t release enough for me to get it around my waist. If I’m on a slight incline it won’t release at all. No amount of gentle tugging, violent pulling, or gentle pleading would help. I decided I’d take advantage of 50˚ weather today to pull the ratchet mechanism apart to see what was wrong.
My seatbelt is based around a simple mechanism involving a single ball bearing in a cup. When the ball is stationary in the cup, the seatbelt has give and will release properly. When the ball is moved out of the cup by a strong force–say, a collision–it contacts a pawl which closes a ratcheting mechanism and stops the belt from releasing. Most of the online sources I found said the mechanism was probably filled with dust and the ball was stuck. I pulled it apart and shook out about a pound of dirt, straw, leaves, and dust, but the mechanism was still jammed. After blowing dust out of the cup with a can of compressed air, the mechanism started working and all was well again.
→ This is a syndicated post from my Scout weblog. More info here.
I took about 15 minutes to take care of some small things yesterday. The first was to measure for new rear seatbelts. The originals are old and worn and I’d like to have something I trust strapping my daughter into the truck. The female side of the buckle came off sometime in the middle of last summer as she was adjusting it, so I shifted her carseat to the other side. On Sunday I pulled a spare off the bench I have in the garage and bolted it in after taking measurements. Then I clamped and cleaned the burrs off the two metal plates I cut for the seat bases, making sure to round the edges. They fit well, so I covered them in etching primer and let them sit overnight. Next I’ll hump one of the seats into the basement and drill the plates, then go out and source some high-quality hardware to mount everything.
→ This is a syndicated post from my Scout weblog. More info here.