Camaro Seat belts in your C3

When I first bought my '76 it had separate lap and shoulder belts (non retractable) that were a real pain. I looked for replacement belts for the car and the sticker shock ($400 and up) made me look for alternatives. I found some universal styled belts for $100 that worked but the buckle end along the transmission hump was very long (similar to little import trucks style) putting the buckle where your belt buckle would be. So off to eBay I go looking for some original styled short buckles which I found but the shoulder belt and the gm buckle didn't fit as good as they should and would often times pull out on their own.

So off to google I go looking for anything else and I find some info stating that 1998-2002 Camaro/Firebird rear seat belts work. Hmmm, gotta check this out. I go back to eBay and found a set from a 2000 Camaro in the dark grey color and won them for $25 plus some shipping total was less than $50.

Now to figure it out since the camaro belts connect to the back side of the rear seat for the belt guide which isn't going to work on the corvette. So, since I had the universals attached to the top of the pillar behind the seats I had to figure out how to reuse this piece and then it was down hill from there.

Here is a pictoral of what I did and everything worked out great and took around an hour start to finish. Just used basic hand tools: hack saw, rachet and sockets, etc. So if anyone has looked for belts or an alternative to the high dollar reproduction belts here something to consider.

Eric

First I removed the seats and the existing seat belts.

This is a view of the camaro belt guide. It's made of hard plastic and was easy to cut an opening with a hack saw to remove the belt.

The buckle ends I had came in a plastic sleeve which was easy to remove the old belt end but to install the new one I used a screw driver to push it through where the belt is looped over the metal mount

Next it was time to cut the existing belts I was replacing. In this shot you can see the pillar mount I need to reuse then how I cut it, increased the cut gap to remove the belt and install the camaro belt then I used some shrink wrap to cover the cut.

New bolts to mount the retracting unit behind the seats on the frame

The ends that mount along just inside the sill plate area next to the rear of the seat is curved the wrong way, nothing the hammer couldn't fix

This view shows the carpet pulled back to locate the threaded hole about halfway up the frame rail then I used a razor blade to cut the carpet. When the carpet is down you can feel a dip in the frame where the hole is. The other side I could feel it without removing the carpet.

Passenger side installed

Buckled installed on the transmission tunnel