Ivan Vegvary wrote:
You guys always have answers.

Bought a little Toyota Tercel (1995) over a year ago. (BTW, I also now own
an identical parts car)
Now, it turns out, we use it all the time for our run-around car since we
get an honest 30-34 miles to the gallon.

SWMBO rightly complains that her seat belt is strangling her. With every
move and wiggle the seat belt just gets tighter and tighter. The drivers
belt allows you to lean forward (reach things etc.) and only locks up on
sudden deceleration. The belts in the parts car act the same way. Checked
with the Toyota service rep and was told that it works as designed so you
could wrap it around a child-seat and not have it give.
Needless to say my Silverado truck does not have this feature on the
passenger side.

Can anybody think of a work around. A driver's belt would not work on the
passenger side because the inertia mechanism would be backwards.

It's really bad. I've sat there and it's a miserable way to ride. Every
five minutes or so, you end up unbuckling, letting the belt retract and then
reinstalling. Pain in the ass.

Any suggestions / modifications would be appreciated.

Ivan Vegvary



Actually your Silverado CAN act the same way. You just have to change
the mode the belt is in.

On the Toyota I don't think they use the same feature though. However
it's worth a shot. Pull the belt ALL the way out of the housing, when it
gets to the end give it a solid tug. If they have the same feature the
belt will now act like the Silverado belts.

Another option would be to replace the belt with one from a different
vehicle. The hard part then is matching the color.

--
Steve W.
Near Cooperstown, New York