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Post by Jeff Roblin on Apr 3, 2009 10:23:55 GMT -5
Has anyone attempted to re-dye their seatbelts? Mine are black ones and the shoulder belt is faded to almost silver-grey on both of them...
I have never seen suitable reproduction seatbelts for our cars so since I have the interior apart right now. (fixing stuff that the body shop messed up - don't get me started the LH seatbelt was glued up solid from sealing the LH quarter glass) I thought it would be good time to attack the seatbelts.
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Post by hipogranada on Apr 4, 2009 7:10:57 GMT -5
Jeff, I've read somewhere that re-dyeing weakens the belt material. Don't know how true that is but I'd hate to find out the hard way. The RIT dye's instructions mention boiling water, which sounds like less than a good idea on seat belts. Disclaimer duly posted, I did some web surfing and found some info posted by the owner of an old Chrysler Imperial... "I recently did a satisfactory seat belt "restoration" project on one of my Imperials. The belts in question were originally dark blue, but had faded, and also had some stains on them. My first step was to remove the seat belts from the car and then to soak them in a cleaner. I chose to use OxyClean, but I suspect a solution of warm water and detergent (clothing or dish) would work equally well. Once satisfactorily cleaned, I redyed the belts using Rit dye. Yes, Rit dye. And it worked great! You can follow the instructions on the Rit, which include a vat of boiling water, or you can do what I did, which was to simply mix it in a spray bottle with warm water and start spraying. I had an extra belt from another car that I used to experiment with until I got the mixture to the right shade. It went on really easily, provided good coverage, and gave great results. It's colorfast, so you don't have to worry about it bleeding on your clothes. And it's cheap.  )" There was another web article posted by a Cougar guy who said that Mar-Hyde's fabric aerosol dye works well. It's made to use on nylon carpets and seems to work well on belts. www.3m.com/US/auto_marine_aero/Bondo/catalog_itemf389.html?itemNbr=151Mar-Hyde's a 3M professional product and you should find it at an automotive paint and body supply store. There are a few places you can send the belts to be restored - they replace the webbing. Ssnake-Oyl is one and I know they're not cheap, but I've seen a couple of sets they've done and they did look good. Here are a couple... www.pythonrestoration.com/www.ssnake-oyl.com/mm5/merchant.mvc?Screen=CTGY&Store_Code=Ssnake-Oyl&Category_Code=RS |
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