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View Full Version : Need help from Civic owners (pic heavy)

Pixels
05-22-2009, 12:43 PM
Rep for anyone willing to take their car apart and post pics for me! I promise it's easier than installing a carseat.

I have a 2002 Honda Civic. I just got my car back from the body shop following my crash. I know that in order to do the repairs, they had to remove and reinstall the rear seat assembly. This morning I went to reinstall DD's carseat and noticed that one of the female buckle stalks is way shorter than it was. I know for sure that it wasn't like that before because I've installed the Radian FFing seatbelt in that position, and it required twisting the belt stalk. It's so short right now that I can't twist anything. I sent it back to the body shop, and they looked at it, said that it's an idiot-proof design so you can't possibly put it back together wrong, and that it must have been that way before. Sigh. I'm going to have to prove to them that they're wrong, and preferably show them how it should be. I would do it myself, but I don't have a torque wrench and frankly don't feel like fixing their mistake. They got paid for the work, they should do it right.

My back seat before the crash and repairs:
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3612/3363358147_55d3ab007b.jpg?v=0

Today:
http://lh4.ggpht.com/_fEUUghv6WuI/ShbTvnVbNGI/AAAAAAAAAFU/NdehJbvSCf4/s400/P1010273.JPG
See the difference?

To see the seatbelt anchors, you have to take out the lower seat cushion. Grab the cushion at the front edge, in the middle of the outboard seating position, and give a firm tug up. It will pop free. Do the same on the other outboard seating position, and then you can move the whole seat bottom out of the way. This is what mine looks like now:
http://lh5.ggpht.com/_fEUUghv6WuI/ShbTwXsBmlI/AAAAAAAAAFk/77hVtra8x5c/s400/P1010275.JPG
You can see the black, L-shaped bracket that the seatbelts are anchored to. The one on the driver's side has one side of the L pointing up (towards the back of the vehicle) and the other towards the center of the vehicle. I am guessing the passenger's side one should be the same way, but they installed it rotated 90 degrees.

To put the seat cushion back on, slide it into place. Make sure you get all your seatbelt buckles up above the seat cushion and not twisted. Then, line up the tabs with the slots at the front of the cushion on each side, and give a firm push down directly over them to snap them into place.
http://lh5.ggpht.com/_fEUUghv6WuI/ShbTwohIM0I/AAAAAAAAAFo/DXlyv5FzSew/s400/P1010276.JPG
Pixels
05-22-2009, 05:19 PM
Bumping this up since I know there's a Civic owner online right now. :)
Jeanum
05-22-2009, 07:12 PM
Weird, is that a replacement seatbelt buckle stalk intended for another model Honda or ??? Is the body shop saying that's your original belt reinstalled how it was before? Was the original seatbelt in need of replacement due to your crash anyway? Sorry, I have more questions/comments than an answer for you and I don't have a Civic to take apart to compare notes for you. :o ETA: Perhaps a Honda shop manual or a Haynes or Chilton's repair manual for the '02 Civic could help you puzzle it out.
shellebelle
05-22-2009, 08:07 PM
My mom's Civic definitely looks like your initial picture. But with regards to the L-shaped brackets, I don't have the car to look at but the way they are seems correct because of how they align the pieces for the center seatbelt.

Did they replace the seatbelts?
Pixels
05-22-2009, 08:27 PM
They reinstalled my original belts/buckles. They didn't need to replace anything in the back seat area, they just needed to remove it so that they could do the repairs on the back end. The body shop is claiming that it was reassembled the same way it was before, but obviously it's not.

I have a Haynes, somewhere. I thought I knew where it was, but it's not on the bookshelf.

ETA: Someone asked me if it was possible that the center and outboard buckle stalks were switched. The female buckles are permanently attached to the webbing, and the webbing is permanently attached to the black L-shaped bracket. The center buckle is stamped "center," so I know for sure which one is which. In the third picture, the center one is pointing toward the center of the vehicle, and the outboard one is pointed down.
shellebelle
05-22-2009, 10:29 PM
Try switching the routing of the center and passenger side buckles. In the first picture the center buckle is routed behind the outboard one, and in the new pictures it's in front. Based on the design of the bracket, it seems as though they're both supposed to come straight up through the cushion.

The driver's side outboard buckle doesn't look much different.
Pixels
05-23-2009, 09:32 AM
I found my Haynes last night. (Brother borrowed and didn't return, but he borrowed it to fix my car, so I can't complain too much.) It doesn't say ANYTHING about the seatbelts, and there weren't any pictures of the area that showed it.

I was able to find a diagram that shows it pretty well if you enlarge the picture to about 400%. It's part 7 in this diagram (http://www.hondapartsdeals.com/hpa/zoom_image.php?file=%2Fhpa%2Fimages%2Fillustration %2F18%2F509018.png&title=Enlarged%20Image&x=1107&y=553). The passenger side bracket should be mirroring the driver's side. The center buckle should be up, and the passenger's buckle should be pointing towards the middle of the vehicle.
WhatAboutPuppy
05-27-2009, 12:55 AM
I found my Haynes last night. (Brother borrowed and didn't return, but he borrowed it to fix my car, so I can't complain too much.) It doesn't say ANYTHING about the seatbelts, and there weren't any pictures of the area that showed it.

I was able to find a diagram that shows it pretty well if you enlarge the picture to about 400%. It's part 7 in this diagram (http://www.hondapartsdeals.com/hpa/zoom_image.php?file=%2Fhpa%2Fimages%2Fillustration %2F18%2F509018.png&title=Enlarged%20Image&x=1107&y=553). The passenger side bracket should be mirroring the driver's side. The center buckle should be up, and the passenger's buckle should be pointing towards the middle of the vehicle.

That is VERY interesting, that's not at all how it would make sense to me (hence the reason I'd never put it back together without something to look at)! For the outboard positions it looks backwards...


I figured it out!!! It's the opposite of how I had to install the 86Y and every other after market top tether anchor I've ever seen, you install it pointing towards the way the crash force will move... but not those seat belt stocks.
hmm... I wish I could so easily get to mine... lol