[Erich]

hat zwar vor einem Jahr einer gemacht, aber der nachfolgende Kommentar von George, einen der Guru's dort, ist wohl negativ aus Sicherheitsgruenden. Kopier das mal hier von den beiden u Winfred, der auch BMW Schrauber ist:

Thought I might share with you an adjustment I made tonight to my passenger seatbelt (I did my drivers a few months ago and it has worked fine). I had the problem that you were hopping out of the car and the seat belt would come with you insted of re-coiling. Anyway as Bently says its not a serviceable unit blah blah blah....well I serviced it.

First I pulled all the belt out of the reel and hooked it around the seat.

Then I took the cladding off the outside of the B pillar and as I suspeceted...no twisting of the belt.

So I found the re-coil unit bolted in by one single bolt down the bottom. So you un-screw that bolt and out comes the re-coil unit from its base at the bottom of the B-pillar. Now this is where it gets interesting. I couldnt find any nut or tightening screw *daym*.

On the re-coil unit there are two covers on either side of it. Pry the top of the covers off and then just twist them around so you can see whats behing them. One cover covers the little ball that makes your seatbelt lock in the event of an accident. And the other cover has the recoil spring behind it, the spring is one of those ones that is metal tape wound around a centre to create tension.

*here from past experince with these types of spring loaded things and what happens when the spring pops out (it is NEXT to impossible to fit the spring back) I grabbed a clamp that had a flat head that was broad enough to cover the entire spring and lightenly tightened it over the spring so it wouldnt pop out.

...so presuming that this is the only way to increase the tension I took about 20cms of tape out of the re-coil unit and cut it off and removed it. *I took about 40cms out of the drivers side unit...it for some reason had more metal tape in it* Then came the intresting part....to keep the metal tape hooked over the outside plastic ring you need to bend it over so it hooks over.

but you cant do this becase the metal is too brittle and when you try to bend it over itself, it snaps. bugger. So how I got around it was. I had about 4cms of metal tape uncoiled comming out of the little slit of the plastic ring. I wiped the grease off the 4cms. Then i tightly wound electrical tape anti-clockwise around the whole of the outside of the plastic ring going over the 4cms of metal tape making it sit firmly down against the outsdie of the plastic ring.

Then you carefully remove the clamp making sure that the spring is not going to pop out in your face. Put the cover back over. Bolt the unit into the bottom. Put the cladding back on and you should now have a faster re-coiling seat belt....Mine is defiently improved and now pops out of its buckle with an ocupant and recoils on its own accord pretty much.

I would say you make your own choice when choosing how much metal tape you remove from the unit. Start with 5cms then just take it from there, after doing it a few times it becomes easy procedure.

Sorry if this is a bit shambled, I dont have my digtal camera with me at the moment. But I wanted to write it down anyway before I forget, it should make sense to you when you see your own unit.

This was done on a '88 build E34 525iM but I think the units are the same across the range. If anyone has any better methods let please me know, as I couldnt find any literature out there telling me how to fix this problem
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that and if that spring comes flying outta there it will slice the hell outta what ever it hits (wonder how i know that)
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First Henry I commend your creativity...good stuff. A bit of russian roulette with trying to repair retractors as they are not designed to be serviced intentionally for liability purposes. They are finicky and intricate little contraptions. Only thing I would say is I wonder how permanent your fix is and second, the clock spring/tape is designed based upon not only a retraction tension but also reel out distance...a precarious balance between the two and I wonder how much you limited travel by shortening the clockspring/tape...perhaps negligibly and not an issue. Then there is the issue of lock up under rapid decel...what they are there for...presume you are OK in that you didn't tamper too greatly with the mechanism...a major pitfall however if you get too invasive with these tricky devices. They even perplex the engineers who design them...mostly due to mind blowing tolerance stack ups with production volumes in the millions with multiple cavity tools that all aren't precisely the same. Lastly BMW clearly did miss the mark with adequate retraction force. I haven't taken the dive into mine for the above reasons which like many out there is sadly lazy...knowing what is inside isn't pretty or particularly tuneable. I hope your solution holds but taping the clockspring seems precarious.
Hats off for taking it on...applaud your ingenuity.
George