Article by: Gerry at PhoenixMotorsport
Article applies to: all E31 BMW models.
Here is a repair of the seat belt that some people find quite daunting.
It is fairly straightforward and part 1 can be done by anyone with pretty basic tools.
What I am going to show here, is how to remove and install the seat belt mechanism and belt assembly.
How about bright red in a red car, or blue in a car with blue piping on the leather? There are dozens of colors and shades available.
So how to remove the belt?
Firstly, move the seat fully forward and as high as possible.
There are 2 small torx bolts buried in the side cover.
Next, undo the small cross head screw at the front of the seat panel, behind the pocket (if fitted).
Carefully pop off the side of the pocket to get access to the screw.
and remove it.
Now gently pull off the seat adjuster knobs and behind the front one, remove the 2 very small cross head screws.
You should now be able to loosen the side cover, disconnect the switches wiring connectors and lift the panel away.
Next, using a small pin, push in where shown in red, to release the clip shown in yellow, and remove the rear shell.
Now remove the headrest by rolling it forward as shown, and use a twisting back and forth motion, whilst pushing away from you.
You can now remove the front shell by removing the two tiny torx screws.
There is one on the outside where shown, but the inner one is only accessible once you have lowered the seat and the headrest post has risen to clear the seat backrest.
Now you can pop off the screw covers either side of the seat,
and remove the screws. (5 times longer than they need to be but fitted just to be a PITA as they are so difficult to get to. Surprised they didn’t thread lock them!)
to access the inner one, you may need to remove the handbrake gaiter to get access to it. I used this. . .
like this….
Using a hex key, disconnect the side anchor position of the belt . . .
and remove the front shoulder shell previously disconnected.
The seat back pulls back at the bottom and then lift off two hooks near the top of the seat . . .
You now need to lift the outer edge of the back up, and thread the belt webbing through it . . .
and then slide the seat back along the headrest bar to remove it.
Now you need to lower the seat again so that you can access the two 13mm shallow head bolts . . . circled below . . .
I found they were so shallow, the lead on a normal socket slipped-off, so I used a Snap-On wrench….
Now, in the position circled, you will find a zip-tie retaining the belt control cable. This needs to be cut….
so that the cable can be removed from the drive motor . . .
and the reel hex head bold accessed and removed.
You can now slide the seat belt complete up from the seat frame . . .
and that’s it! All done.
Easy eh?