Manual Seat Belt Install

[Jon]

Belt installed:
This is the final product of a 1989 Galant seat belt installed in the car. The B-pillar is very different between the 89 and 90+ Galants so some work will be needed.


Top Bolt:
The plastic pieces are from a 1989 Galant and you can see the factory location for the top seat belt mount. You can use two different factory bolt holes in your Galant VR4. One sets the seat belt higher (as I did) than this hole or you can pick the lower one. The lower mount doesn't hide the factory hole in the plastic piece and it puts the belt right on your shoulder.


Lower Bolt:
From this picture you can see the bottom mount. It uses a factory mounting point but again, the entire b-pillar is different in 1989 so mounting the seat belt is tricky.
I removed the factory lap belt as well and you can see the hole cut out in the carpet.
The plastic piece is again from a 1989 Galant.


Wiring Changes:
When you remove the original belts, the seat belt light in the dash will come on. To prevent this, loop the the factory wires as shown in the center console.


Belt Buckles:
The seat belt buckles are also different from the 1989 Galant. You'll have to remove both front seats and remove the seat belt clips. The seats require no modification to make this work as it has provisions for this type of seat belt clip from the factory. The plastic trim piece from a 1989 Galant front seat will be needed too to make it look original.

 

Interesting addition. I have an 89 Galant GSX, it has the automatic seatbelts, and the dash doesnt have the pocket on the drivers side, and the console is the later design. I just pulled the parts for the manual belt swap from an 89 GS (that had leather interior.. odd). it appears the upper trim along the top of the doors is the same, but I haven't begun swapping parts.
Could you clarify if the other trim panels (not just the b-pillar panels, I have those) are the same. Also which panels on the seat are you referring to? The inboard panel where the female side of the belt attaches? Or the outboard side where there is a little guide for the lapbelt?
Thanks for the writeup.

 

[gtluke]

I'm doing this right now,
How did you mount the A-pillar? there really isn't anything for it to fit into.

 

[atc250r]

Jon wrote this over 5 years ago so I don't see much hope of getting much info out of him at this point so I'll answer the questions because I think it might help others down the road. The inboard (against the center console) seat panel will need to either be modified or replaced with the 1989 style piece as the 19089 buckles MUST be used and are different than the auto belt cars. The A-pillar is slightly different and for my car I bought a black finishing screw for each side that holds the very top of the panel in place. The headliner comes up a little short above the doors as the 1989 headliner is a little different, I never let it bug me much but some people may want to re-cover their headliner and leave a little extra to make up the difference. This forum isn't really for discussion, especially of 5 year old threads but I'm just trying to help you guys out.

John