I pull all the interior out of these cars when I buy one, clean it down to the metal, and scrub the carpets real good. Cleaned up many Gen1s without a problem, until this one car. When I went to put the interior back together, the driver's front seat belt no longer retracts, so it's real long and laying around the cabin. What did I do wrong? It worked fine before I took it out. I expect it has something to do with the restraint system. The (IIRC) airbag light is on. I have another seatbelt. Don't want to mess it up too, but haven't found any instructions in the service manual.
Lol necroposting! I know older cars (like, 1990s) had a solenoid? in the seatbelt retractor/reel assembly that controlled this. When "off", you were wearing the seatbelt, but you could lean forward and adjust the radio, peer out the top of the windshield, etc, and basically do whatever you wanted to do. When "on", the retraction worked, and the seatbelt pretty much kept you confined to the "normal" driving position. I may be conflating this with an "actuator" in the seatbelt assembly, which was a small explosive (!) charge in a cylinder, that worked exactly one time. If the airbags went off, this little charge also went off, which locked the seatbelt assembly - not allowing it to reel out - so as to keep you confined to the seat in the wreck you were having. I know that the Hollander manuals have a disclaimer that says "We don't list any information about the seat belts, because the lawyers say you should always buy a new one for $BIGNUM." I know that there are third-party companies that will rebuild your seatbelt reel for you, with a new actuator, because that's cheaper than $BIGNUM. I would at least look at the reel assembly, which is near the bottom of the B pillar (you have to take off the B pillar inside trim to see it). See if there's a ratchet mechanism of some kind that keeps the seat belt from retracting.
