I imported an US fiero to The Netherlands. Can anyone explain the way of working of the seat belts. The auto roll up system (from the shoulder and hip blelt) works fine. To test the locking mechanism in Europe we are used to just pull the belt quickly/shortly by hand, it should be pretty easy to lock the belt in this way. I tried this with my new Fiero (in order to be prepared for the safety cerification), but I am not able to get the belt in the locked status, no matter how quick I pull the belt. So I wonder if in the US it is possible to get the belt in the locked status by hand or if the lock up is activated in another way ?

apparently you cannot pull the belt fast enough. I am told they work great, but testing is difficult.

Only info I found in the service manual:

[This message has been edited by Camel (edited 06-21-2019).]

quote Originally posted by freek: So I wonder if in the US it is possible to get the belt in the locked status by hand or if the lock up is activated in another way ?

In the US it's common to test the belt activation by driving into heavy objects. In Canada we attach a hockey stick to the end of the belt and attempt to take a slap-shot.

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In short...
Fiero and some other seat belts design to lock in a crash or hard braking by tilt weights sim to most Arcade games for the last 60+ years.

CLICK FOR FULL SIZE

After they lock will unlock again depending on car position and damage.
They Do Not Lock by pulling out at any speed when parked on level ground because they are not made to do that.
Parked or drive on a Hill CAN lock them easily and will not work right until car is on less of a grade to level again.

Fiero Seat belt mech is at shoulder level and doesn't collect trash like others.
But if Seat Belt itself is dirty then can have problem retracting etc because of this.

If dirty, pull belt out and block it out.
Clean with soft brush, mild soap and rinse and allow to dry completely before you allow the mech to retract.
Look for EU equivalent to Dawn dish soap or Simple Green. Both are safer to the belt then most are and if some left in the belt shouldn't bother people skin.
If local water is hard... Final rinse w/ cheap bottled water.

Note Even many new cars have similar locking methods for normal driving But Most have "pretension" seat belt parts control by the "Air bag" module. If you see SRS light then these parts can have problems not just air bag(s) in a car. If the belts fire the pretension or just goes bad for wear or any other reason then you have to replace whatever part. Most have explosive parts that can hurt or kill you if not handled properly.

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Dr. Ian Malcolm: Yeah, but your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could, they didn't stop to think if they should.
(Jurassic Park)

The Ogre's Fiero Cave

thanks, the picture makers it clear!!! In the Eu the belt lock up is activated by centrifugal weight in the spool of the belt, that,s why you can test by pulling the belt fastly. Now i understand that this does not work this way with the US system. I will try out the system it on a hill ....

quote Originally posted by Patrick: In the US it's common to test the belt activation by driving into heavy objects. In Canada we attach a hockey stick to the end of the belt and attempt to take a slap-shot. ...

The seat belt will lock if you decelerate hard (pointing the car downhill is equivalent to light deceleration).