Talk Morgan Forums Morgan Sports Cars Morgan Three Wheeler & Super 3 Seat belt inertia reel locked

Two questions, where I should be grateful if anyone knows the answers: 1) Can I fit the later type belts on a 2012 M3W, where the driver's side - left as it is an LHD car has started the usual locking up nonsense? It will not be corrosion in my case but is highly likely to be dust. 2) Does anyone know the maker and model number of the later belt, so that I can see if I can try to source it from a French auto parts supplier?. Parcels from UK to France are a disaster at the moment. Stuff can be held up at customs for weeks at the moment and not infrequently, just disappears - Brexit payback I assume.

Wilson

In addition to the TM thread ‘Seat belt inertia reel locked’
I have maybe an extra solution for getting the retractors loose and install them again easily in a day.
I am the lucky owner of a 2012 M3W with a 2016 new frame-work/chassis.
So probably it is not – as with most of the M3W – a “copy-paste” job, but nevertheless.

How my new seatbelts are fixed.

The new Belts
The old Belts had a black label with : E4 - 0435017 – CAPITAL – www.capitalseating.co.uk
[ On their website I could not find 3-points belts with a retractor ]
Driver CAP0223 -Passenger CAP0224 -2012 – Produced in the UK. [ This M3W is from 2012 ]

I bought new ones from the EU, so no hassle with all the Brexit issues.
Buying instead in the EU saves a lot of money.
No double tax to be paid because UK-sellers – especially MMC - refuse the obligation to take of the VAT.
No other import duties and fast delivery.
I bought them from ‘Gordelspecialist.nl’. An idea for a EU part-list?
They have several colours, I bought the dark green ones.
Article number : HN-300-2A3MDG
Price for two : € 139 including sending costs [ April 2023 ].
The new Belts have a white label with : E24 -08 23 -Hazna – type : HN-300-2 – Danyang City Hazna Vehicle parts Co., Ltd – Made in China - 3 meters

Different from the original ones.
They are actually the same, but the upper belt-triangle at the old ones pointed upwards.
The upper belt-triangle on the new one is curved the other way – not ‘up’ but ‘down’ - and that makes them even better and more easier to put a wrench on the bold-head. Contrary to a lot of others I was lucky and had no problems in getting out these upper bolts.
Most important : The bolt holes of the new retractors are slightly lower placed than at the original.

The tray design had to be changed.
On my original 2012 M3W-construction MMC had to keep the bolt-thread outside the little aluminium tray - which protects the underside of the retractors against road dust - because there was no space for the bolt-thread inside. This because of their choice of type and brand they installed.
Many years fully in the road water and tyre-dust, those threads were very rusty and a PIA to loosen.
Holding the tray in place by using the retractor bolts, made the tray immovable to take away before these bolts are loos. MMC designed some small rectangular holes under ( and in ) the very thin tray and covered it with an even thinner aluminium plate which MMC fixed with rivets. On a place with no space to get rid of those rivets.

The holes in the bottom of the original MMC tray are designed in a way that you can only use a flat-wrench, but that is a very difficult - PIA - job to do.
No flat-wrench will stick for a long time on the bolt-head, because the thread is dirty and rusty and while you need a lot of force.
The aluminium is so thin that every wrench will ruin the tray when force is applied.

We need a better way to get the retractor bolts loos and those bolts should be better protected.
The tray under the retractors should not being fixed anymore with the two retractor bolts, but with some plus-nut-rivets.
When you have to do this job, you should first take away that tray before you take out the retractor bolts.
With a far thicker and stronger piece of aluminium I closed the two rectangular holes.
In the new situation you can easily take out the more sturdy constructed tray by loosening the two small M5 Allan-key bolts at the back of the tray who are attached to two plus-nut-rivet on the chassis.
The main retractor bolt-heads ( wrench 14 new-ones ) are made free from the tray.
Because the bolt holes of the new retractors are lower placed it is far easier to put a 90 degree pipe wrench 17 on them under the retractor. Which was impossible with the old ones.
The threads of the two bolts - now protected inside the tray - are maintained well in grease or in my case ‘Tefgel’.

Finishing the job.
At reinstalling the bulkhead-parts I found that absolutely the last bolts to tight are the upper triangle bolts of the belts, which also fixes the upper-part of the bulkhead. When you tighten them first you will never find the holes of the other bolts in the bulkhead corresponding with the chassis.
The last part I actually mounted with two M5 bolts was this redesigned aluminium tray, even after the two bulkhead parts where already placed.
I made use of the situation to clean the chassis frames and put two layers of Line-seed oil with siccative on it. I have had very good results for the preservation in salt water with Line-seed oil on big steel sailing-vessels at sea. And of course I greased the ‘prop-shaft’.
I also used plus-rivet-nuts for the brilliant idea of “Bitsobrits” in TM-post ‘Seat belt inertia reel locked‘ to be possible to open a hatch – see his great pictures - to clean the retractors and the tray without the need of taking the whole bulkhead away. I did the same for the cover above the bevel-box.
BTW I did not need to cut the upper bulkhead part to get the belt through. Belt, upper-Triangle and fixing part for the bottom went all smoothly through the existing letter-box-sleeve.
So in case I have to renew the retractors again, I only need to take that hatch in the upper bulkhead-part away and the tray, and I am ready in a day instead of 4 days ( actually 2 weeks ).

What was the problem with the retractor?
After I opened the back of the M3W and saw all the dust and rust, I knew there was no repair possible.
By cleaning the belt and the retractors I tried to solve the problem with the seatbelt.
I took the old one out and opened it and looked what the mistake was.

The retractor-construction is standard for most seatbelts.
At one side is the gravity ball which locks the shaft when the ball moves. The ball moves at every strange movement.
The shaft has no real bearings, so the moment it is locked at one side the shaft is pulled up at that side and will do the same at the other side, where the shaft becomes fixed by teeth in the metal housing.
In a normal situation there is a tiny wire-spring who holds the shaft in the middle, so you can extract the belt.
The problem was simple. Fatigue of that tiny wire-spring after 12 years use.

So when you have a problem with the seatbelts and they are older than – say – 8 years, renew them (both).




[b][/b]

Interesting that MMC are intransigent in selling and shipping net of VAT to outside the UK when they are not obliged to make this charge. Personal collection or shipping within UK is a different matter of course.

Thanks for all the info about the seat belt installation Herrie, never an easy job. Knock yourself out with an "EU Parts list", I will do the rest of the world 😊. As with your belts, many of the parts now come from China sadly, the route you chose to obtain them is up to you, MMC are rarely the cheapest option wherever you live. I know alternative seat belt inertia units have been used on M3W's as the corrosion is a problem but I have not been able to get information on which commonly available ones fit yet, unless anyone out there knows?

Not a proper "fix" but it sometimes helps a sticking seat belt if you pull it all the way out and give it a good soapy water clean, let it dry and then jiggle it back in....or you may be left with a very long seat belt that won't retract.

Yes. That happened to me in a day after a first drove my recreated Plus 8 the MMC sent me. But it did not concern me much as
I was removing it anyway. I had learned in our accident that melted our Morgan that the seat belt system automobiles are forced
to use by legislatures are fightening. Those statistic reach over 170,000 in the USA. And,
in a car at night, when your car is in flames and you are stunned by the impact, finding a tiny little push button stalk release at
your side, is anything but easy. I don't know whether it would be any better during the day. Most peiople poanic more than I.
I am dumber than most.

My wife now refuses to use such seatbelts.Who can blame her? So after speaking with mogging friends. we switched to the more
attractive latch belts, a variation of smarter belts of yore, before legislatures got too deeply involved. They have a quick release on
your lap. No buttons to press, no fumbling about for a little button atop in a little stock away from your body.

As for the inertia system, it is too big and bulky, takes up space better used for a bigger speaker (anything under 130mm OD is
useless in a Morgan) and the jam inevitably. They will also rip the rear wings off in a crash. A three pointer latch belt (below) is
adjusted to YOUR size and is great unless you are constantly renting out your mog. I never failed a MOT, though Mike Duncan
had a very good relationship with the local tester as most good dealers do. Check that. In Quebec we have no testing, safety or
emissions especially for a car technically as old as mine.

There are some additional happy features. If you check your seats, you will notice that they were made for such belts. They have large,
unused bolt holes on both sides of each seat. I imagine that is planned. At least these holeswere on my MMC seats (2003) and those
earlier. This makes installation very simple. The belt straps come in any color you could wish for and these safer chrome flip latches
are period. They also cost very little. Circa 50$. Lastly, they allow proper side speakers (the ones you can REALLY hear).

I recommend an important but costless measure. https://www.gomog.com/allmorgan/interior1.html#WATCHPOINT Though the risk is
known to many cogniescenti, the UK and USA had only affidavit compliance for this area.

L.

Very interesting gomog but probably not very relevant to the M3W where space is very limited.

Perhaps I explained poorly. The switch to much safer 3 pointers (without the problematic inertia reels)
and fit with a quick lap release is also eliminate space usage for another purpose..as it does, [even
more so with 4 wheelers. The older systems I mention are also prettier, much cheaper, far more reliable
and allows for bigger speakers. They are easy to fit and no modification is required to the vehicle. I suspect
your vehicle does not have the standard 4 seater anchors at the seat, but I recall yours having anchoring
point(s) on the seat's bulkhead panel and of course, the inertia wheel must be fit in the rear (behind the
bulkhead?)

But chacun à son goût! Good luck and happy mogging!

L.