Seatbelt question.(not auto problem)
 

I have a 92 LS-L with the automatic seatbelts. My question is: are the "recoilers" supposed to lock? Meaning I can pull the belts in and out and they will not stop. They don't seem to want to keep me in the seat.
All 4 of them.
The owners manual says they are supposed to "allow free movement inside the car unless you plow into something". Or whatever...
But I've done some pretty hard stops to see if they will lock up, and they won't.
In my previous cars(not Subaru) they seemed to be centrificaly(sp) locked. When you yanked on them hard they would lock.
But not my SVX's.
Is my car a rolling deathtrap?
Or are they working properly.

P.S. it was in a frontal collision sometime before I bought it, and the airbag also doesn't work. So I at least want the seatbelts to! :eek:
Maybe I should just get a 4 point harness and let my passengers worry about themselves. :)

get some off another car. The stops on the belts did there job when it was in an accident and stripped the stops. Its pretty easy to replace about a hour or so.

That's sort of what I was thinking...

Rolling deathtrap...

Well, I took my upper seatbelt retracting mechanisim apart and was pleasantly supprised. It seems that they may in fact be working as designed. I'm not sure if I like how they were designed, however...
As I'm sure you may know(but I just discovered), the shoulder(and I assume lap) belts are controlled by a little metal cone shaped thingy, whith the pointy part(of the "cone") pointing up. With a pen tip sized pivot point underneath. And with the plastic ratchet sitting on top of the "cone".
So when the vehicle either stops abruptly(in ANY horizontal direction), or I assume rolls over, etc, the cone pivots "up", forcing the plastic ratchet to lock some other unseen ratchet, thus locking the belt.
All you have to do to see this of course is open your rear seat "ash tray" lid, and yank the "ash tray" out. You can then see both shoulder belt "recoilers".

I say I'm not sure if I like this design because as far as I can see, the only way to "test" to see if it is working is to run your car into something(not recommended), or roll it over(also not recommended).
You can simply stick your fingers under the pivot point, forcing it up, to see if the locks work. As mine do. But I don't trust the system itself.

I'm going to use a precision adhesion application(duct tape) to just lock the shoulder belts in my normal driving position.

I've already tried it with my fingers cleverly inserted, and opening and closing the door to see if it allows enough movement.

I haven't looked at the lap belts yet, but at least this will assure me I'm not going to go through the windshield, and it will feel as if I have a 4 point harness....
Only with just 2 points...

Well with that figured out, just don't crash;)

Oh, DON'T crash?! :eek:
I've been doing it wrong the whole time.;)