Passenger Seat belt stuck, might have to replace.

Was rewiring speakers and disconnected the seat belt mechanism and when i was trying to put it back it wouldn't retract, so long story short, its stuck stuck. Unable to do much at this point but replace. I didn't see an obvious way to disconnect the yellow wire to the mechanism, does anyone know how to? Looked for videos and posts and nothing specifically. Thanks for any input before I have to drive shamefully to the dealership.

 

I would have thought that the yellow cap attached to the silver cylinder would be a connector of some sort, but failing that, a pair of side cutters will work nicely.

 

I will take a closer pic in a few, but didn't look obvious and I didn't want to make things worse.

 

That's the seat belt pretensioner. It's a small explosive charge that tightens the seat belt in an accident. It should unplug but if you're going to be messing around with it I do it with the battery unplugged as a precaution.

 

battery has been unplugged the entire time, here is a better pic, it did look like some sort of device that i should be careful with.

 

This, be careful!
Unfortunately my mother found out how hard and fast these things retract. She was making a double left with a metro bus that took up both lanes. Her van was totaled, but it was a relatively low speed accident. Her ribs were cracked from the pretensioner on the seatbelt, which then lead to other health problems. They look innocent, but they're not, I'm guessing they're also very expensive to replace.

 

looks like 200$ ball park. Finishing up things and then going to connect battery and drive to dealership. Thanks for heads up

 

That sucks, but I would've guessed more.
I'm still curious why it won't retract tough. I don't know, but would assume if it was set-off, you would have heard about it, but I don't know boo about it, other than the previous story.

 

I think the weights in it perhaps? i had it sideways and just made things worse, now it retracted so much its not moving.

 

I'm not sure how these ones work specifically but I know whenever I had to replace HMMWV seat belts there's a little check ball in there that would only allow the seat belt to move like it should if it was set at the exact correct angle. Might be worth seeing if it's something like that.

 

Yeah you have to be careful removing seat belts, i make sure to “catch” them with some clips so they can’t retract like that

 

Trust me, lesson learned, hopefully someone else sees this and learns. Ill report back when i take it to Toyota and im met with a bill.

 

Unplug it and take it apart. It's "fucked" anyway, might as well learn how it works Jic someone in the future runs into the same issue. My guess is the centrifugal "clutch" (balls) are getting hung up.

 

I did the one side, but not the side with the "charge". I was going to ask a tech at toyota about that and since I am going to pay, i might as well learn something from it.

 

Could you not put it back together, take it to the dealer, plead ignorance and try and get it warrantied?
Just thinkin out loud.......

 

The side that doesnt have the charge is easy to take off and put back on, which i did put back together. I am going to go to the dealership and tell them i tried to fix it myself and obviously something is not working right. I will be honest and let the cards fall where they may. Just super annoying.

 

i agree with tall dave. put back together and go to dealer and say my seatbelt screwed up, i dont know what happened.

 

and do not take apart

 

Hm. My friends dog used to chew his seatbelts, he found a place that would fix them for $75 online. Maybe you could try a place like that? Surely cheaper than the dealer

 

What was the fix for this? Any luck?