Hi All: I also posted in the for sale section. I am set to pick up a 1990 estate wagon for the front and rear seats, door panels and seat belts to swap out into my dad's 1986 Lesabre estate wagon. I know the seats will be simple even if I have to swap out the seat tracks and motors. Since I would like to also swap out the door panels from the '90, dos anyone know how to remove the front seat belts from the door assembly to swap them out along with the door panels?I am getting teh entire car, so I can also swap out the B pillar interior trim to hide the current holes for the existing seat belts. I am confident I can remove the seatbelt assembly from inside the front doors, but there is a hard plastic "guide" at the top corner of each fron door that I'm not too sure how to remove without damaging it. Anyone ever remove these? I assume since all the full size Buick wagons used the same doors from the mid 80s thru 1990 it should be a bolt on once I figure out how to remove them. If anyone knows about this please let me know!! Thanks, Ted V, Chicago
Were I you, I would NOT remove the 86 seatbelts. Depending on your height and now far back you put the front seat, the belts on the door may do little to nothing for safety, except possibly downgrade it! The back of the door is so far forward that if you sit near the end of the seat travel, the belt is off your chest by a very significant amount.
Unsafe design? ******************** Are you saying that GM made this wagon unsafe when they redesigned the front seat belts to become mounted on the front doors instead of the B pillars? My dad owned a 1990 estate wagon with the same seat belt set up and I never felt it was unsafe or exposed me or the front seat passenger to undue risk of being unsecured. Since I wanted to swap out his current door panels for the 1990 panels, I would have to also swap out the seat belts or the door panels would look ridiculous with holes for the belts, but no belts. I would also have to rewire the 1990 window harness into the 1986 harness so I could use the window switches. I also have to relocate the driver seat controls from the door panel to the seat bottom unless I am able to reroute that harness thru the door jamb rubber sleeve to the door panel control. For now, I think I am just going to swap out the seats and see what parts of the 1990 harness can be spliced to the 1986 harness to make this work. If I just swap out the front seats, I still have to find a place to mount the driver seat controls which on the 1986 model are located along the left edge of the bottom seat cushion. I might have the swap out the seat track instead of modifying the 1990 seats. His current door panels are still useable, but his seats have seen better days. Anyone else with knowledge of this please chime in. Also see my post on parting the 1990 wagon out in the parts section. Ted V.
