.....now I need to change my shorts.




Started working on installing the rear seatbelts in my w124 300td this morning. Was trying to figure out which belt went on which side, then I noticed the seatbelt was all the way retracted, so I started fiddeling with it (turned it to all angles, bumped it, shook it) - all in an effort to make it release. Nothing worked. So I (stupidly) popped off the end cover and out shot the spring. Startled me and my little boy. I managed not to cuss.

So, I've farted around for about an hour trying to recoil the darn thing, to no avail. I can buy them on line, but, darn! I had one already paid for. Has this ever happened to anyone here? I looked to see if there were photos of how this is supposed to look when properly recoiled.....maybe I could open the other one too see .

Also - how do you release the catch so it can be strung out to full length? And, what part number is the driver side (in the US of A)?

Thanks !

Ok - took a break - tried it again.



This is where the spring came out of (in a hissing-hurry)...



It wanted to coil in the wrong direction, starting with the small coil first - so I spent 20 minutes coiling it backwards. The middle has a T-hook shape the attaches to the center spindle, the outer end just has a J-loop which clips to the outer rim of the case. Winding in the correct direction takes greater effort - much harder. I had to continually pull to tighten my coil so it would fit inside the space. To rest my fingers, I latched on my vice grips for a few minutes.



Finally all inside. You can see at the middle the spring slips into a gap on the plastic spindle. On the bottom of the photo you see the outer end of the spring (a J-hook) that grips a slot for that purpose. My only concern is that I oriented the spring in the wrong direction. I can't tell which way it goes because the belt is latched (and the spring will go in either way).

Lesson learned - I'll nevvvveeeeerrrrr open a seatbelt like this again !

Hmmmmm - as I look at this photo, I kinda think it's not going to work, I think the spring needs to be coiled in the expanded direction instead of the fully tightened direction. Dunno - anyone out there have any luck doing this?

Get another one, but save the old one because you might need a little tilt locking piece that allows the belt to pull out when the car is within a certain number of degrees when level, but locks it when beyond that, e.g., the car is upside down. Each belt has a piece calibrated to its specific angle of install.

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Peach Parts W124.128 User Group.

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85 300SD
87 300TD
92 300D 2.5 Turbo
92 300TE 4Matic

Good news! I have been trying to figure out which one of these is the passenger side, and which one was the driver side belt tensioner - so I took the one I broke (and put back together) - and mounted it in the passenger side hole - and it immediatly unlocked! If I had only tried that first, I wouldn't have broken the darn thing. Am going to take it back out now and glue the lid on (I broke one of the 4 clips when it blew apart - I don't want it to come apart at some bad moment in the future). Oh yeah - also - the spring was installed correctly because the seatbelt retracts like it should (it could be a little tighter, but it still works ok).