Talk Morgan Forums Thread Like Summary - M3W seatbelt removal?

The passenger seatbelt on my M3W is jammed. It clicks immediately you try to pull it out to put on. I have tried easing it out slowly and/or at an angle to no avail. To investigate I have managed to get the seat backs off but the belt disappears behind a panel that is riveted and seems to be sealed in place.

Some help from the boffins on here as to how I should progress would be much appreciated.

Thank you so much for your reply's, Herrie and Bitsobrits as they both certainly helped. I took on board some advice and replaced the rivets on the back panel with rivnuts so it will be a tad easier next time. It is all done, at last, and I can also now offer some advise. I decided to replace both belts although it was only the passenger that was not un-reeling ( think I made that word up!) . I got hold of a UK company called BHIuk and spoke to Graham White. He could not have been more helpful and said he would replace the mechanism ( not the belts) on both, with a German brand that would never give me the problem again. And said he would turn them around in a day if I sent them to him. Which he did and the bill was around £84 in total including post and pack which I thought was very reasonable.
The only issue, and this is some thing he would not have realised, is that the hole in the new brackets were about 5mm off the hole in the car as they could not go down far enough being of a slightly different shape but I made some adjustment to solve this problem. His tel in 07792594354 if you have a similar problem and I have no affiliation with this company. Again thanks for your help it is much appreciated.

As far as I can remember, both of my seatbelts were working fine last October when I tucked the car away for winter. However, when I jumped in the car recently to take it to for its MOT, I found that the driver's belt would not retract and the passenger one wouldn't extend. i.e. both had failed over winter but in different ways! Having found this thread I suspected that dust might be to blame, yet still I was surprised at the extent that it had built up (as I'm sure I've cleaned the area several times in the past). The dust involved is that horrible very fine stuff which seems to be picked up by the rear wheel and then blown into the cockpit!

This is a June 2012 chassis by the way - I think later (post 2014?) chassis have a different reel mounting arrangement which may or may not be better in this regard.



So, this time I paid a bit more attention and decided to do something about the problem. First I filled the triangular gaps either side of the compartment with some cut to size 12mm x 50mm adhesive backed foam I had lying around. This thick foam is ideal for this as it's not a regular shape you're trying to fill.



Then I applied some self-adhesive foam to the bottom plate. By the way, the nick out of the front edge you can see is to clear Mr Bleazey's bevel box top mount.



I applied some draught excluder around the perimeter of the area which seals against the aluminium bulkhead.



Finally, I used 'closure plate tape' to seal between the aluminium rear bulkhead and the body which hopefully will prevent at least some of the dust from making its way forward into the cockpit.

I'm lucky in that BHI are only around 35 minutes from where I live so I was able to pop in with the old belts. They were able to match them exactly with the same make of reel. I chose to have 40cm shorter webbing to eliminate the dreaded seatbelt droop. I was also encouraged to have a rummage through their stock of bolts and spacers which was useful. For instance I grabbed a couple of 25mm bolts for mounting the reels into place thus eliminating the unnecessary (rusty) exposed thread of the originals. Why did MMC always use bolts which were 10mm too long?

It was a bit of a fiddle to remove the top belt bracket bolts. Some time ago I invested in a set of 'extra flat spanners' and the 17mm one made the job doable. I cut around 6mm off the bolts before reassembly which also helped a lot.

By the way, if you have ever wondered where old Series One Range Rovers go to die, I have the answer. They are all parked around BHI - apparently the company owner's brother just keeps buying them, I wouldn't be surprised if there are 100+ there.