Have you replaced your gen1 front seat belts ?

I have been looking to replace my front seat belts

Dealer wants $250 each but won't sell them to me.

eBay has them for $140

Has anyone replaced them

The Local Toyota parts guys says they are a liability due to an explosive component that acts during an accident to tighten them up quickly.

 

just buy used ones from part-outs, or ebay is fine. explosive component? never heard of it. there is a piece that locks the belt when sudden forward motion is detected. this is purely mechanical and not electric driven.

to test, pull really hard on the belt and you will feel it stop, that's the safety mechanism preventing you from flying into the steering wheel

 

Local Junkyard? You'll be lucky to find a 1st gen in it. But...worth a look.

I've purchased used parts from this place - http://www.ranchotoyotatruckparts.com/

Craigslist?

 

I tried once because my passenger side was sticking but dealer sent me the wrong part and was a huge hassle to get a return, this was all done online of course.

 

It's called a pre-tensioner. Been around for 15-20 years.

 

Yes, they have a charge to explode. My 99 did anyway. These thing change every year. I changed mine out yesterday. Buy used and you get the same weak rewind spring. I bought mine new from the dealer for $208 out the door. Be sure to have your VIN to order. Takes 20 min. to install.

 

Yes, the do have an explosive charge. It assists the pretensioner. It tightens the belt super fast when a collision occurs.

I get mine rebuilt when I need them. I use a company called: myairbags.com

Been using them for years to do this. Last I checked it was $75 to rebuild a seatbelt.

 

new seat belt apparently $145

http://www.toyotamcdonoughparts.com...022_5759332/Seat-belt/711846-7152-674460.html

 

You trying cleaning the belts? Sometimes the weak spool can't overcome the stiffness of the dirty seat belt.

 

I want replacement seats , what about the ones on eBay ?? There cheap and look great and I can weld up brackets but wonder is if anyone has any other thoughts

 

How do you ou go about cleaning them?

 

that must include shipping because unless im seeing that wrong it says $126 not $145 7321004121B0

 

there are different belts listed, I have no clue which is which but went with the highest one

 

Check this out. https://www.tacomaworld.com/threads/lazy-seat-belt-fix.246949/

 

I thought I could help give some helpful advice based on my experience of replacing this earlier today. My issue was that the seat belt wouldn't retract and would frequently hang outside the door.

I ended-up purchasing a new seat belt from Toyotapartsdeal.com. Typing in the vin number gave me the following part number to replace:
73220-04141-B0 BELT ASSY, FR SEAT

Total cost was $187.66 - a bit more than I expected due to $30.00 hazardous material fee:
$131.15 for belt + $9.84 tax + $16.67 shipping + $30.00 hazardous fee.

Swapping was straightforward - I mainly followed this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2OfFXoT6_xo&t=102s
but breakdown is a simple as:
1) remove 4 screws on the plastic floor plate adjacent to the door (the thing you kick as you step into the cab). pull off plastic floor trim.
2) at the base of the seat belt that bolts to the floor, pull off the plastic cover using a screw driver and unscrew the bolt
3) at the peak of the seat belt where you can adjust the height of the seat belt against the side of the cab, use a screw driver to pull off the cover and unscrew bolt
4) unscrew the coat hanger tab above the rear window
5) using your screw driver, gently pry the side of the plastic interior panel starting from the base - you don't need to remove the plastic trim entirely - just enough to get the 2 bolts on the seat belt mechanism. The plastic trim is held to the cab with plastic tabs.
6) unscrew the bottom and top bolt of the seat belt mechanism. Afterwards, you'll need to separate the pretensioner cable attached to the mechanism - pull the black plastic top piece on the yellow plug (this is holding the cable together to the mechanism) then pull off the plug.

You should be able to remove everything from there. One caveat in putting everything back together: the main plastic trim is held in place using metal pressure tabs - I found it easier to pull these metal tabs out and slide them on the plastic tabs first then sliding them back into place in the cab.

In terms of torque, I followed the attached sheet from Toyota, which basically requires all the main bolts to be torqued to ~31 LBF EXCEPT the top bolt of the seat belt mechanism (to be clear, see the instructions), which requires ~6 lbs of torque (don't know why but that's what it says).

Overall: While expensive, I'm glad I replaced it. There's a huge difference in retracting and it now functions as it should with a good amount of tension on the seatbelt.

 

You soak the straps in woolite. Rinse / repeat until the water is no longer brown / cloudy. Then air dry.

I've done this (as well as re-wind the retractor). It only kind of works. It is an improvement, but doesn't fix the issue.

 

Srt4 seats i love them super comfortable

 

I had replaced the drivers side seat belt this year on my 96' (397k miles) because it would no longer retract and was frayed. I purchased it from my local dealer and yes it was expensive but for me the hardest part was having to pull back the plastic and worrying about breaking something but 20 minutes later I was done.

 

i know this is an ancient thread, but i still read it and found it helpful 10 years later. so maybe this little morsel would be useful to other folks too.

i have a 98 limited, with a manufactured date of 12/97, and i couldn't pass inspection because my drives belt was frayed pretty bad. you can no longer buy a replacement belt from toyota, and i was lucky enough to find one at my "local" junkyard. i also found that the part numbers varied within the same model year, and when i got into replacing mine i found out why. because of the difference between the belts, it wasn't simple swap. so i took the webbing from the junkyard find, and put it into my retractor. sorry for not documenting the steps, but i thought it was going to be a simple process already covered elsewhere. i suppose it could have been simple, but i decided to dissemble and clean the retractor and ran into unexpected issues along the way. tiny broken plastic clips, uncoiled spring, and so on. so just be careful, if you go that route also.