Quote:
Originally Posted by tucsonjwt
On the topic of seatbelts, my 83 belts do not inertia lock when I tug on them. Whenever I find seat belts on old squares in the junkyards they all do the same thing. Are they all designed like this? It seems like the shoulder harness won't do any good if they won't lock upon impact.
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Seatbelts are designed to have ALR & ELR safety functions. ALR “Automatic Locking Retractor”/ ELR “Emergency Locking Retractor”. I’m going to say, that I bet our older seatbelts on our trucks, only have the ELR function, but I’m not certain on that. I know the newer vehicles, by law, have both. When I worked at the Auto Factory, that was my job for the last 5 yrs, was checking the functions of the seatbelts. I also checked other quality & safety features on the vehicles.
There are two types of ELR functions, the sensitivity to the webbing withdrawal rate and the sensitivity to vehicle deceleration. Now the only correct way to check this, would be to sit in the seat and buckle the belt. Pull the belt out a little and then let the excess retract back, the belt can’t have a lot of excess or slack, or it will not lock probably. Now grab the belt, where it goes acrossed your chest and yank on it hard. It should lock.