Seatbelts - auto to manual

[sticky240]

Is their a way to change Auto seatbelts to manual.

I have Auto on my `90 but I really want manual ones. I am thinking I need to get a trim piece (without the track hole) and some other parts (seatbelt ofcourse) from another 240 but what 89-94 year came without auto seatbelts???

edit: yes I searched here

[soulDistortion]

All the US S13's have auto-belts. Sad fact of life. If you want a fully OEM manual belt configuration, go harass some Canadians or someone with access to a Japanese interior to get their setup, which is a lot of pieces (asides from all the trim, you'll need a new headliner).

There's an excellent writeup at http://web2.iadfw.net/biosehn/mycar/beltinstall/ which details installing the canadian set.

The other alternative is to get a pair of S14 (95-98 240sx) belts and just modify your b-pillar trim (a Dremel would help immensely). If you decide to do that, please note that you will need to also get 2 new bolts because the bolts that connect the seatbelts to the upper part of the b-pillar are too short for the trim. You'll have to get 7/16 bolts, and most places will have the longest as 2 1/2 inches (3 is preferrable, but 2 1/2 is fine).

Oh, and get some threadlock, too.

Also, if you follow the instructions as per the link above, I suggest removing the front seats. It makes things much much easier.

Other than that, it's pretty straightforward, and is just time consuming. If you do the S14 belt route, don't forget to clean the A-pillar trim, as there is sure to be some grease from the autobelt tracks on there.

Make sure you plan out before you start cutting into your b-pillar trim: don't be like me, with some funky looking cuts on the passenger side where I was trying to "figure things out". Yeah.

[mbmbmb23]

Regarding the Canadian setup:
To make it nice you'd need the belts, A-Pillar (without slit for the track like the US ones), B-Pillar Trim (with holes for the Bolt, and Canadian headliner (which is wider than the US one). Be careful sourcing parts for this....I got burned by a jerk in Canada for a couple hundred dollars.

Regarding the S14 belts:
The longer bolts you will need arent just everyday bolts...they have a shoulder on them so the belt pulley can swivel. I would take one of these into a bolt specialty store and see what they can find in their catalogs.



-m

[sticky240]

wow, thanks for the info.
I think for now I'll just stick to the Auto belts as I have other issue that I need to take car of ( like my rear defroster and wiper being out due to the wires on the passenger side of the hatch being cut)

Thanks