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Old 10-19-2011, 09:29 AM   #1
dyssavureign
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Reverting '90 seatbelts to B pillar where they belong

Has anyone attempted this?
I just bought a '90 Caprice and loving every bit of it... except the interior; pretty rough. I have a clean & complete interior from an previous '84 project getting ready to swap in. Obvious conflict is the door mounted seat belts in the '90.

Searching the forums and internets hasn't yielded much info. other than the door belts were added this final year to meet federal safety guidelines. Like what? I'm not sure. Maybe Chevy was trying to put off the expense of retooling for airbags when they were overhauling the Caprice the next year anyway, dunno.

Apparently they discontinued them because, in an crash bad enough to take away your doors, the belts were taking the passengers with 'em.

Anyway I'm digging in this weekend. I'll post updates/results in case anyone is contemplating this swap.
Thanks in advance for any helpful info.
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Old 10-20-2011, 12:18 PM   #2
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Re: Reverting '90 seatbelts to B pillar where they belong

Have you gathered all the parts you need?
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Old 06-18-2012, 01:04 PM   #3
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Re: Reverting '90 seatbelts to B pillar where they belong

I was able to find out some of the "what was GM thinking" with this setup.
The key word is "passive restraint"; a safety system that requires the driver to do nothing for it to work. Passive restraint was mandated by Uncle Sam for 1990. Airbags were the new hotness for marketing buzz, but in a Caprice, airbags would have required steep changes for the computer, sensors, column, dash etc... components that went virtually unchanged since 1977 and were about to get overhauled for 1991. GM put these obnoxious belts in a lot of models in 90, but with the heritage of the Caprice it seems like especially poor engineering.

So how is this door seatbelt passive restraint? Don't you still have to buckle it? Thats the stupid part. This design allows you to get in and out without unbuckling your seatbelt... Ever. GM actually expected people to do this. Its even printed in the owners manual. Needless to say it was not a natural design, motorweek even hated them.

(skip to 4:10, hilarious)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JGcEqvOgEVw

So now about putting things back in order...
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Old 06-18-2012, 01:38 PM   #4
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Re: Reverting '90 seatbelts to B pillar where they belong

Started out with my clean '90 Caprice, bought back in Oct. '11 not long before I started this thread.



This is a second attempt at replacing a '84 Caprice that I loved, but totaled. Before the '84 went to scrap I pulled ALL the blue interior since it was in amazing shape. Hit a bump with the seat belts.

Digging in:

This project is really 2 projects:
1. Installing the seat belt to the B-pillar.
B. Deleting the seat belt in the door.

What you need to do this right:

1. Seatbelts from a 77-89 Caprice with bolts. It is impossible to reuse the 90 seatbelts for this. You'll see why. However, you can use the existing buckles.

2. B-Pillar cover trim from a 77-89 Caprice. You'll need both upper and lower pieces. They have the pocket for the belt spool and the hole for the floor mount.

3. Interior door panel from a 77-89 Caprice.

Tools:
- T50 Torx head
- 3/4" metal hole saw
- 1-3/8" metal hole saw
- A good metal file
- Drill
- Angle grinder
- Stanley Knife
- Tape measure
- Screwdrivers, sockets, pliers, etc.


Materials
- Self-etching primer
- Loc-Tite
- 7/16" washers
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Old 06-18-2012, 02:36 PM   #5
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Re: Reverting '90 seatbelts to B pillar where they belong

Starting with installing the belts to the B-pillar.

Safety is a priority. Not screwing around with seatbelts. I want this thing to be as strong or stronger than stock.

first step is to remove the '90 B-pillar covers and see what we got.


Was hoping for a direct bolt on, not so lucky. The inner panel has been stamped differently for this setup.
On top, the door-belt catch is mounted with 2 holes, neither in the position I need, and the bottom section has holes missing that are needed to mount the spool. Drilling is in order. The black sticky stuff is a mess. Careful of the carpet if you're saving it.

Once I removed the catch with the torx, a metal backing plate fell to the bottom, I'm saving it for later.


Top hole drilled with 3/4" hole saw, low speed. Located the correct position using the 84 pillar cover. I used a fridge magnet while I was cutting to keep shavings from going everywhere and becoming future rust nuggets.


I cut the existing backing plate in half so I can use it for the spool mount as well.


Now a problem... locating the top hole was easy because I had the cover. However, I have no way to locate the missing holes for the spool. Looking at pics of the '84 dissasembly wasn't much help. Never really shot the interior of the pillars. I ran across a picture i could enlarge enough for a start. Enjoy the donor Caprice carnage.


From that I was able to get this:


Measuring the width of the pillar I had in the driveway, I came up with a crude scale for the pic. and highlighted the holes I needed.


Between that and measuring the spool itself I felt I had a good shot at getting it right.

First how the spool fits in the pocket from the back. It has a bit of a rearward sweep to it. Not exactly vertical.


Determined that the lowermost center hole was already in position. From that I measured and marked the spool and my pillar for the door release and spool hanger.



For the spool 3 holes are needed. The T-shaped spool hanger, the bolt, and the door release.


The door release is tricky because it has to line up on the flat spot exactly below the latch on the door.


Aside from that the door release is actually 2 holes, one on the outside sheet metal, and a larger one (1-3/8") on the inside sheet metal. This is so the weather plunger on the spool release can sit flush on the outside sheet metal.




Test fit. This is where my other half of that backing plate comes in. I had to use vise grips to keep it from spinning until the bolt was tight.


Back to the top. After priming my holes, I used some of the black sticky stuff to hold the backing plate in place behind the metal.


I used a 7/16" large thick grade 8 washer to reinforce the bolt. This is the bolt you need from the donor belts.


It has the smooth shank that takes the upper belt loop.


What about the floor mount? Chevy kindly left that under the carpet for '90. Bolt included.

Put it all back together for the final time. Order is important.
- Loop belt through the pillar covers
- Attach the floor mount
- Attach the lower pillar cover
- Hang the spool and attach with loc-tite
- Attach the upper pillar cover
- Put bolt through upper loop and mount to pillar with loc-tite

Now you have 2 seatbelts. On to the door...
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Old 06-19-2012, 02:36 PM   #6
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Re: Reverting '90 seatbelts to B pillar where they belong

After studying the door for a while I was getting the sinking feeling that I'd have to find a different door to make this work. There are some significant differences, but it is possible! Disassembling the door takes longer than the pillar, but overall I would say this part is simpler.

For the door I'm switching over to the passenger side.


Take off the armrests etc. and get down to the door panel off.


Something different about the later door pulls are the snap on inserts. Just pop them off.




I could tell these door panels had been off before, random assortment of fasteners, and the passenger side was missing the jute padding layer. From the factory the door pulls were riveted on. A 1/4 drill bit will take care of them.

Here is a side by side of the pre '90 door and '90 door

Pre '90:


and '90


Key differences:

1. Wiring
Retractor lockup in the '90 is controlled electronically instead of mechanically, so there are 2 sets of wires in the harness that lead to it. (black and yellow) These will get taped up and left in the door.

Also since the extra bulge on the door limited access to the side of the seat, the power seat controls were moved to the door as well. Trying to decide whether to cut a place for them in my new/old panel or route them under the carpet back to the seat.

2. Power door lock actuator
Pre-90 this was in the lower outside corner of the door. You can see the two rivets in the first pic. This was moved up above the latch to make way for the seat belt assembly. Why does it matter? See #3...

3. Door lock knob location.
The place on top of the door panel where the knob was designed to go obviously interfered with where the seatbelt needed to come out of the door. It was moved forward of the belt. Will have to modify the linkages to the actuator to put it back. This was one of the more obnoxious things to me with this system, as you can't rest your arm in the window without the knob digging into your forearm.


Moving on...
Door panel off, now removing the seatbelt assembly.
Its held on with 3 nuts, pretty simple.


The belt is secured to the door with this metal bracket at the bottom of the window. Huge rivets, taken care of with the grinder.


The top loop/striker in the window is a little more tricky.

The plastic cover pops off from the outside revealing 3 bolts: 2 top, 1 side.
You can remove the nuts, but at least the side bolt has to come out to remove the loop/striker. I'll be taking out all 3 anyway and filling the holes.


To get them out you have to pull back the weatherstripping outside and rotate the bolt correctly to pull it out of the channel.

The little bugger


Now you should have your complete 90 seatbelt assembly ready for ebay.
(seriously, somebody let me know if you want them)


Heres a crude diagram showing how the lock knob was relocated in the door.
The red is the actuator, green the door latch and blue the linkage.
As it was originally:


I decided to cut the linkage after the actuator and flip that piece after some rebending to the other side of the actuator.



Before I could make my bends I had to cut the new hole in the door. Used the new panel to line it up. It pretty much goes in the flat sloped part at the end of the door. New hole on the right:


Bent up the linkage, trial and error.


There was room on the actuator to slide in both pieces of linkage. Heres how its laid out now:


Test fit the door panel.


Beautiful


Thats the bulk of it. I'll finish the minor details after the interior is redone, door clips etc. but this piece of lame engineering from GM is officially deleted.

Hope this helps anyone else contemplating this mod. Its not too difficult, especially if you can get your hands on the interior pieces. Thanks for reading.
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Old 06-20-2012, 09:52 PM   #7
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Re: Reverting '90 seatbelts to B pillar where they belong

Looks good.
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