Frozen seat belt in a '98 Subaru Liberty

[peteblundoon]

Hi all, hoping someone can give me some advice on this problem with my '98 Subaru Liberty RX. Had to take a friend to hospital. Embarrassingly, the front passenger belt had frozen and she had to sit in the back.
It had been getting stubborn to retract, and because I don't have passengers very often, it had become worse without me realising. I couldn't coax it in or out.

The research that I've done advises against attempting to repair the unit because they have pyrotechnic pretensioners installed - connected electrically to the airbag circuitry in the event of a collision.
Is this true? The cost of a new one is ridiculous, and one from a wrecker would have to be from a car where the airbags had not activated.

Cheers,
peteblundoon

[SS Dave]

From memory the seatbelt on the 98 liberty is not connected to the airbag system, The system has the Drivers and Passengers front inflators plus side inflators in the seats. There is also a impact sensor on the B pillar.
As for why it's jammed it could have foreign body that fallen in the mech or is rolled up to tight and that's locked the mech. Make sure the vehicle is level and then try pulling a bit harder than normal so it will roll up tighter on the bottom reel then when you release the belt it should give you a little bit of slack that should let it unlock. failing that you could try and undo the bolt that holds the top of the belt to get some slack.

A lot of vehicle dismantlers won't sell seat belts or any part of the airbag system for safety as they could not ensure there integrity so you may need to find some one that's wrecking one on market place

[VroomVroom]

There are some videos on Youtube on repairing seat belt mechanisms , may be worth a try.

[lsemmens]

Sadly, I wouldn't be willing to trust a secondhand seatbelt anyway. If I couldn't fix it, Passengers will have to sit in the back.