Talk Morgan Forums Morgan Sports Cars Maintenance & Servicing Replacing the seat belt on a 2007 Plus 4

The passengers seat belt on my 2007 Plus 4 locked up and refused to move. It has been causing problems for some time, so I decided to replace the inertia reel mechanism. The reels are horizontally mounted in the rear, bolted onto a bracket that is screwed to the frame, located above the fuel tank. It is clear that the seat belt reels were installed before the body was skinned,they are very difficult to access. A certain amount of access can be gained by removing the carpet and unscrewing the vertical panel above the parcel shelf, but this doesn't provide access to the seat belt reel fixing bolt. So the main access is via the spare wheel well. It also helps to un-mount the charcoal canister.

The access to the reel is very restricted, the photograph tends to make it look easier than it is.



The reel is secured by one bolt which has a 17mm head and 18mm nut, sadly the bolt is not fixed so you do need to get a spanner onto the head. The 18mm nut can be accessed with a flexible head 18mm ratchet spanner.

After a lengthy period of failure I decided the only way to get a spanner on the head of the bolt would be by modifying a spanner. So I took an old spanner out of the drawer, mounted it in the vice, heated it up with an induction heater, hit it with a hammer to put a bend in it, ground the spanner to fit the 17mm head, and ended up with a custom spanner to get to the bolt head







Now I can stop the bolt from rotating, and undo the nut, and once the cabin end of the belt is unbolted I can remove the seat belt reel and pull the belt through and take the whole assembly away to the bench.






A quick trip to FDTS and a replacement inertia reel mechanism was obtained and fitted

Re-fitting the belt was OK, as once I had prepared my bent spanner I could tighten the nut. The process was not easy, but achievable

So if you are going to replace your seat belt, best to invite Juri Geller around to do some spanner bending



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Very timely Mike, thanks for this. Jersey is introducing MOTs so I need to replace a slightly frayed belt.

An excellent post. I once had a go at removing mine to see if I could increase spring tension as retraction is very weak. However, having tried, I gave up as it looked to be impossible. I well remember seeing the reels mounted at the factory prior to skinning.
I think many Morgan owners suffer from weak retraction so this should be a great help.

Just for information, last week Halfords had a set of 12 flexible head ratchet spanners at a reduced price of £56 from an original £70. This set does include the required 18mm spanner to access the nut. I did already have a 18mm ratchet spanner with an angled head, but the flexible head does make the job easier.

Charcoal canister? What’s that please?

Its part of the car's emissions controls, the charcoal canister's job is to absorb fuel vapor that would otherwise vent out to the atmosphere, causing pollution. Vapors trapped by the charcoal are released back into the engine through the purge valve and then burned.

Sue Taylor at FDTS did show me how the belt is fixed to the reel. To increase the spring tension - pull the belt out as far as you can - put a small screwdriver through the slot in the reel spindle to stop it rotating and unwinding the spring - push the belt into the slot in the spindle on the reel so it comes out the other side and pull out the pin from the belt and then pull the belt back and out from the spindle - wind the spindle round to increase spring tension, being careful as you pull the screwdriver out in order to rotate the spindle so the spindle doesn't spin round and unwind the spring, put the screwdriver back in to lock the spindle - then push the belt back through the slot - put the pin through the belt - pull the belt out to take up slack and then pull out the screwdriver to allow the belt to wind back into the inertia reel assembly. It is fairly obvious once you start the job

Who’s learnt how to copy and paste then?

I should know about it after all the problems I had with my fuel tank pressurising and roll over valve issues, however all fixed at the factory in the end.

I could write a book on it. All part of the teething problems I’m told.

Hi Teknome, been there done exactly that, Sue was a great help and provided a great service for the refurb-ing of my belts. IMHO the belts are installed incorrectly In the first place, they should be in a more vertical plane.
If they do jam engage reverse, put 5k on the rev counter and drop the clutch in and then slam the brakes on, it usually frees the stuck belt.......would be handy if MMC programmed a launch control algorithm into the ECU active only in reverse gear to facilitate rectification of this basic design mess.