My drivers side seat belt jammed and stopped retracting a few years back. Replaced w a spare. Came across the old bad assy last week while organizing parts. Opened it up to see if it was repairable
The ribbon spring split where the pen is pointing and jammed the assembly. Thinking about it, I wondered if a passenger spring would work. They are used much less, more plentiful. So a better used part - longer future life.
The assembly is like a mower recoiled, but no pull string to hold the coil in place w/o unwinding. Examined both drivers and passenger. Drilled a hole in the case (before removing from seat belt base) grabbed the center spool w needle nose pliers keeping it from unwinding.
used needle nose vise grips to remove the recoiled assy w green spools. Looking at it, it’s identical to passenger side, only inverted. No need to uncoil and rewind.
grabbed and swapped the good spring assy from the passenger, used a second set of vise grips to grab and lock it from the other side. Installed it into the drivers side. Reinserted the needle nose pliers through the hole to prevent unwinding when release of vise grips. While holding the needle nose on the green spool, align the entire assembly onto to the seat belt unit. Once aligned, I removed the needle nose pliers. The ribbon spring was fully retracted. I wasn’t able to wind it any tighter to make up for spring tension loss over time. And made sure the seatbelt strap was fully retracted. Screwed the 4 small covers screws down and it’s back in operation.
The swapping of the springs took just a couple minutes. If you let the ribbon unwind, it’ll be a pita
Put tape over the hole in the recoil case to keep it clean. I see no way this negatively affects the safe operation of the seat belt.
These assemblies seem to go on eBay for $65-100 shipped/tax. Pick up at least a passenger unit from a junkie as a spare for $10. Mine failed around 250k miles
Sorted mine out. Have a set for MadMax’s car and 2 more sets for future show cars plus spares for springs.
good luck