Plastic Repair

So the other day i was driving to north jersey with my 6 month old husky in the passenger seat. she laid her head down next to the console and i thought she was sleeping....after 10 minutes i heard a loud "POP" and i looked over....she had been chewing my seatbelt the ENTIRE TIME!!!! i got to my girls house and grabbed some of her dads sand paper and went rough to fine (he is a body man) and there are no jagged edges now. i put armor all on it but i noticed today that it was fading again. anyone know how to restore the color of the plastic (pref w/o heat or paint :P )? i would like to not have to armor all it every week.

DON'T armor all seat belts...it weakens the webbing.

Learn to enjoy the dog-chewed color/texture.



If the chewing also damaged the belt...just go to a JY, dealer, etc, and get a new one.

Don't know that you'll find a seatbelt in a junkyard that you can scabbage. They have an explosive pre-tensioner in them and IIRC, you can't install them yourself. Hopefully, I'm wrong for the OP's sake, but if memory serves, this has come up before with the same answer.

So where does that leave you? Stealership for a new one IF you decide to replace it.

The bigger question is, how bad is the "chewing"?

-G

Just throwing this out there, I cant picture for the life of me right now, but if the plastic for the seatbelt assembly is anything like the plastic bumpers on the X, you could try a heatgun on it. I used a 1500 degree heatgun (paint stripper) on the outside plastics on mine to restore the color, I even had a spot where the rear corner bumped a tele pole and creased it, the heatgun made the creases nearly impossible to see, blended them right in. That was probably the beginning of LAST summer (2010) when I did it, and they still look pretty good.

well the chewing is no longer a problem...i sanded all of that out (not ROUGH sanding...just to smooth things out). so the roughness isnt a problem...the problem is all the fading/scratches from the papers i used.

i prefer not using a heat gun near the seats/console because i don't want anything to get damaged that is in the area. just didnt know if there was any spray or wipes that would make the color come back. guess not.

i guess i shall just learn to live with the seat belt. so i guess my next question shall be...

anyone know of a good story i can tell to explain the seatbelt besides the whole "my dog ate my homework" idea? i would love to see yall's imagination. :P (dear god help me now with these ideas)

couldnt you remove the plastic part to use a heat gun so as not to damage anything near it inside? I wouldnt think it should stand out too much, but I know it would bug me at times too.

If it is plastic, as opposed to the seatbelt webbing material, you might try Mother's Back to Black if the plastic is a dark enough color.

As noted above, the seat belts do have an explosive pre-tensioner charge. They can be replaced if you know how to do it, but you really should get a detailed step-by-step instruction from the factory service manual. I believe the first step is disconnect the battery so that you don't blow the charge. Also, it will have to be a used seat belt as the dealers will *not* sell the seat belt directly to an owner.

k_enn

UM, we replaced one right in the hotel parking lot at ECXC.....its not that big a deal.