69 seat belt help

[copo69]

Have a ‘69 Biscayne that the plastic cover on the retractable seat belt has disintegrated and needs replaced. Does the belt mechanism need to be disassembled to pass buckle through. It doesn’t appear that it will slide over the buckle when installing new cover. It’s the same on many GM cars like the Chevelle.

[cheveslakr]

You can pull it out, spin it 90 degrees while wrapping the belt tight to the clevice and it'll go, tight, but it'll go.

[Bill Pritchard]

I've had 69 belts apart many times. More often than not, the plastic cover breaks, as it is a very tight fit over the metal base and the plastic is extremely brittle after 55 years. You can super-glue them back together and pray that they don't crack again when installing the new cover....that has worked for me.

EDIT: oops, I see now that you're working on the male end of the belt that's retractable, so forget what I said above. I did this on my former 69 Chevelle in order to repaint the retractor cover, and I think I did disassemble the retractor mechanism and remove the belt after removing the plastic cover from the metal base. What chevslakr mentioned above may work but I never tried it.

[LT1vette]

Heat the plastic FIRST with a hair dryer....should work