mopar jon Posted November 7, 2014 Report Share Posted November 7, 2014 Is there a posting for the step by step replacement of the automatic seat belt tape used in the 1987-1989 Starquests? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fanta Posted November 7, 2014 Report Share Posted November 7, 2014 (edited) I could have sworn there was as I've done it before. Are the belts just no longer moving? To give a brief run down, you need to move the A-pillar trim, the trim along the top of the door where the belt runs, and the giant leather interior panel by the backseat. The motor is bolted behind there, and the tape track is bolted at various spots along the door frame, and how it also gets guided down and under the motor as well. Once you have that out, you should be able to look at the motor and see where a cover is to unbolt and replace the tape - try your best to put the other one as the same length/spot, and then just reverse the order of what you did I did both of mine around 5 years ago. Edited November 7, 2014 by Fanta Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lionbull Posted November 7, 2014 Report Share Posted November 7, 2014 front seat has to come out too.buy white lithium grease in a can when you are reassembling so you can lube the tape. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mopar jon Posted November 7, 2014 Author Report Share Posted November 7, 2014 Thanks for the info ,as the factory service manual is useless on this procedure,also since its not easy peasy like replacing a antenna mast, i will remove the old one and install a complete working assembly from the parts car, it all has to come out any ways. Bummer.... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tankbob Posted November 8, 2014 Report Share Posted November 8, 2014 You cant just give the tracks a good lube and their back to normal? Where do you get this tape, my drivers belt is really slow and the passenger is even worse. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mikec Posted November 8, 2014 Report Share Posted November 8, 2014 Replacing the toothed belt requires removing a lot of the interior panels:* cover of "A" pillar (sides of windshield)* rear seat bottom cushion* panels from floor to ceiling behind the front seats* plastic scuff plate (the long flat plastic piece on the bottom of the door opening) Trim sticks will be needed to pop/pry some of these pieces.Order I would do the job: (from memory, it's been years since I worked on interior stuff...)1: "A" pillar cover. It snaps in at the top and bottom... and the snaps may bust. 2: rear seat bottom cushion: 2 screws underneath those little plastic covers on the front, then it lifts up & out. Push the seat belts through the holes. 3: side panels next to the rear seat ends. You may have to remove the rear seat belt mechanisms to get to a screw. Look for another screw inside the carpet between the car body and sides of the rear seatbacks (flip the seatbacks down). 4: Shoulder bolsters above that panel you just removed. Flip the loose leather flap up and you'll see two screws if I remember correctly. Remove those, then pull the bolsters towards the front of the car to unclip the bolsters. 5: For the panel that goes from the bolster to the ceiling... remove the coat hanger clips. Pop the cover off the round buttons and remove the screws inside them. Try to wiggle the panel out. You may have to remove the plastic panel across the ceiling... see the factory manual for where the clips are (they'll probably bust even when you use a trim stick) and which way to pull the panel to slide it out. 6: scuff plates (the plastic at the bottom of the door opening) have 6 or 7 snaps. Pry these up from front to back using a flat trim stick. Don't pull on the plastic itself - you've got just as much chance of busting it in half as getting a clip to pop free. Pry from underneath with the trim stick straddling a clip or at least pushed against a clip. You should be able to see the moving mouse motor and gearbox assembly behind the front seats near the floor. Unplug the power connector. Look for a "C" shaped white piece of plastic held in by a few screws. Removing that "C" piece. (the FSM calls that "tape guide") Note how the bottom edge fits around the toothed belt and rest of the motor assembly and the first bit of track underneath the door opening... that track clips/snaps into the "C" piece with a metal claw if I remember correctly. Now go to the top of the "A" pillar and the end of the belt. There is a screwed-on piece with the "limit switches" that stop the motor when the belt reaches the end of its travel. Undo that and slip it off the end of the toothed belt. See the large rectangular hole in the toothed belt? The piece that supports the actual shoulder seat belt should slide through that hole to separate those pieces. Note the direction all these parts have relative to each other for later reassembly (if you forget, just look at the one on the other side of the car - don't take both sides apart at the same time!) At this point I think you'll be able to slide the belt all the way out. Uncouple the toothed belt from the drive gear (where that "C" shaped piece was) and slide the belt upwards until the end underneath the door comes out. Then feed that outside the car as you pull the belt downwards. Watch the little black boxes at the back of the door opening; those are also limit switches and a safety hook (snags the belt in hard deceleration to supplement the motor+gearbox in accidents) and make sure they don't snag the belt or get damaged. You may have to remove them, I don't remember for sure. Have some rags handy. The graphite based lubricant on the toothed belts is nasty and you don't want to smear it all over the interior of your car. Don't wipe the lubricant off the toothed belt though - save as much of it as you can. I have no idea what the original stuff was. You'll see the toothed belt has taken a "set" in the shape of the guides/tracks too... swapping the toothed belts from one side of the car to the other is not a good idea because of this set. To install the replacement toothed belt you'll probably have to pull back the carpet edges a bit to see the lower tracks. And maybe the edge of the ceiling too. I know it can be done without removing the ceiling panel... been there, done that years ago on an 87. Clean the limit switches too - crud on these are the #1 reason the belt fails to move. Don't forget to plug the motor back in after assembling the belt and "C" piece. Test the system before re-installing the interior. And lubricate the new belt on assembly. That'll replace the toothed belt and re-use existing guides/tracks without removing those guides. Replacing the guides/tracks and the belt as one big assembly is also do-able. You'll need more ceiling access I think. And separate the motor+gearbox assembly from the belt assembly - you don't want that heavy mess fighting you. Years ago, when I went to repair the driver side of an 87, the toothed belt had split/frayed along the ceiling as thus kept snagging the ends of the various track pieces. That's what kept jamming that seat belt and why I had to replace it. I asked my local Mitsu dealer to look up the parts... the toothed belt was not sold as a separate piece: you had to buy it and all the guide things as one big assembly. Expensive... and No Longer Available at that time - long long ago. Used belts are the only option I'm aware of now. I don't know if parts from mid-80s Toyota Cressida sedans would adapt - the "moving mouse" seatbelt was a Toyota patented design in response to the new "mandatory passive restraint" laws that required automatic belts or airbags. Switching to the earlier StarQuest style shoulder belt design - with the retractor mechanism inside the door - is an option. You'd have to cut a hole in the door interior panel and fit the trim piece from an earlier model StarQuest to do this adaptation. Some SQC.com folks have done this... a SEARCH might find details. mike c. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tankbob Posted November 9, 2014 Report Share Posted November 9, 2014 Could you go into more detail on the limit switches? Thanks much for the complete walk through there but finding a new good tooth belt seems a lot harder than cleaning these switches and seeing if that fixes them enough for me. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mikec Posted November 9, 2014 Report Share Posted November 9, 2014 When the limit switches go bad the moving mouse fails to move. A slow moving mouse indicates other problems, usually dried lubrication, a belt that is delaminating, or rarely bad wiring. It's possible the brushes inside the motor have worn too I guess but I haven't seen/read about that yet. Note: you'll see the motor screwed to the gearbox. The gearbox forms part of the motor case so if you separate them the motor falls apart. It's the same basic motor assembly Mitsu uses elsewhere on the car too: power windows for example. Probably on pretty much any model Mitsu from the 80s so they should be readily available at junkyards too. Undo the lower interior panel to expose the motor assembly and see how much gunk has accumulated around it and the gearbox; if that area is a mess then the toothed belt will draw that gunk inside the gearbox too. The usual issue with limit switches is external crud on them, jamming the skinny levers/linkages. Pretty easy to see and clean. A damp rag or Simple Green is probably enough. I personally haven't had to clean any myself though dirty limit switches is the #1 issue with the moving mouse belts and there have been dozens of posts about them on SQC.com over the years. Described in the FAQ "Archives" section. I'll let others chime in on suggestions for toothed belt lubrication. I've seen folks recommend silicon spray but I'd expect that to be rather short-term fix. WD-40 is definately a no-no; it'll wash away whatever is left of the factory graphite lubrication and make a gooey mess out of it. mike c. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Starfighterpilot Posted November 9, 2014 Report Share Posted November 9, 2014 finding a new good tooth belt seems a lot harder than cleaning these switches and seeing if that fixes them enough for me. Passenger doors get opened and closed nowhere near the number of times the driver door does. As a result the Starquest passenger seat belt tape is usually in great shape. If you reverse the passenger side tape (front end to rear or rear end to front ) it is an exact fit as the drivers side tape, even tho they have different part nos. MB47 2629 left or MB47 2630 right. Get a used passenger side guide tape from the Parts Wanted Forum. About 5 years ago Grant ( Pure Insanity ) and I did this to the Old Broad, cuz her tape got chewed up. After disassembling and cleaning each section of the tape track and the limit switches with isopropyl alcohol to get the crud out, we used a THIN coat of molybdenum Never Seize to lube the tape & it's track. The drivers side auto seat belt has worked fine ever since. If you use too much lube you'll gum up the switches again. Ask me how I know. Hint - after you lube and reassemble the auto seat belt system without the interior panels on, open & close the door about 10 to 20 times, wiping off the excess lube after each seat belt cycle; and clean the contacts of the limit switches again. Then reinstall the interior panels. For What It's Worth. KEN Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tankbob Posted November 12, 2014 Report Share Posted November 12, 2014 Passenger doors get opened and closed nowhere near the number of times the driver door does. As a result the Starquest passenger seat belt tape is usually in great shape. If you reverse the passenger side tape (front end to rear or rear end to front ) it is an exact fit as the drivers side tape, even tho they have different part nos. MB47 2629 left or MB47 2630 right. Get a used passenger side guide tape from the Parts Wanted Forum. About 5 years ago Grant ( Pure Insanity ) and I did this to the Old Broad, cuz her tape got chewed up. After disassembling and cleaning each section of the tape track and the limit switches with isopropyl alcohol to get the crud out, we used a THIN coat of molybdenum Never Seize to lube the tape & it's track. The drivers side auto seat belt has worked fine ever since. If you use too much lube you'll gum up the switches again. Ask me how I know. Hint - after you lube and reassemble the auto seat belt system without the interior panels on, open & close the door about 10 to 20 times, wiping off the excess lube after each seat belt cycle; and clean the contacts of the limit switches again. Then reinstall the interior panels. For What It's Worth. KENThats odd cause my passenger belt is the real issue, its been pulled on by unknowing passengers before I get a chance to stop them. When I bought the car that side already had issues but its gotten worse, the driver side is just slow it never gets stuck and beeps like the other side. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shelby Posted November 12, 2014 Report Share Posted November 12, 2014 (edited) the only damaged part of the tape I have found has been the part holding the swt , every tape I have had out was a few inches longer then actualy needed , on these tapes cutting the end damaged link out so the swt had a new mounting sopt fixed the problem with a bad swt mount link yhr entire ladder link looks just like an old gm link but I can't recall the yr or model , parts store useed to carry the gm ladder lind for the windows but I'm unsure what to ask for now Edited November 12, 2014 by Shelby Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mopar jon Posted November 15, 2014 Author Report Share Posted November 15, 2014 Removed the entire broke unit, and installed the used working unit, the plastic tape was broke midway in the bad one as if the motor gear tore it, so all is good now. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tankbob Posted November 16, 2014 Report Share Posted November 16, 2014 Question for those who owned these cars since new or close, were the seatbelts fast? Ive been in an integra that the auto belt were crazy fast but every starion ive seen they are pretty slow in comparison Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Starfighterpilot Posted November 16, 2014 Report Share Posted November 16, 2014 When the Old Broad was new, her auto seat belts moved fast, too damn fast, cuz you had to make sure you didn't get strangled by 'em. They gradually slowed down over the years cuz the tape lube gradually got crustier. After I replaced the stripped out tape & put lube on it, they moved fast again and still do. I think that there may be a couple of other contributing factors in slow auto seat belt movement, such as dirty/corroded or loose electrical connector metal terminals in the engine house or at the fuse box under the drivers side dash. For What It's Worth. KEN Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mech Posted January 16 Report Share Posted January 16 Bump old thread... is a new tape guide mb472629 going to be available anywhere?, or not worth searching? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TexasQuest Posted January 16 Report Share Posted January 16 4 hours ago, Mech said: Bump old thread... is a new tape guide mb472629 going to be available anywhere?, or not worth searching? Highly doubtful. More than likely get a good used one from a parts car. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mech Posted January 16 Report Share Posted January 16 16 hours ago, TexasQuest said: Highly doubtful. More than likely get a good used one from a parts car. i did a ton of digging and quite a few phone calls. not gonna happen. Starquest fighter pilot mentioned never seez moly for lubricating the tape, there are different variations of it, so not sure which one hes talking about, and whichever one it is, they are expensive and harder to get. What has everyone been using to lube the tape? Seems like an important decision as its a pain to take all this apart, only want to do it once. Probably nothing with graphite in it, as that is what caused the issue in the first place. I get it that any lubricant is going to break down over time, especially when exposed to dirt like the tracks are. But when i pulled my tape out, big chunks of dried lube were coming out. I was thinking a highly quality synthetic bearing grease like redline cv2, or mag 1 wheel bearing grease....since i already have them. https://www.summitracing.com/parts/red-80401 https://www.amazon.com/Mag-720-High-Temp-Bearing-Grease/dp/B0077K8WJC/ref=cm_cr_arp_d_product_top?ie=UTF8 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TexasQuest Posted January 16 Report Share Posted January 16 I've had good luck with white lithium grease spray. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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