Seat Belt Restoration

[Dale Pearman]

I am eager to learn the experiences of those of you who have restored original seat belts from C1 Corvettes. In particular:

• Redying the webbing
• Recad plating the female buckles
• Rechroming the male buckle

I'm talking about pure restoration here. I buy webbing, labels, buckles, etc. all the time to make reproduction belts but I have two sets of red 810 belts and one set of black 810 belts that I'd like to bring back.

Thanks in advance for all the help.

Varooom!

[Chuck G.]

Re: Seat Belt Restoration

Hi Dale. I've re-dyed many sets of belts. I've used both RIT and Tintex products with good results. Here's what I do. First, buy dye stripper and remove completely the original color. The belts will come out a light beige/ecru color. Then redye them. If you try dyeing over the original color, it never works well. Also, make sure that the belts are "rust free". Oxalic acid is the rust remover that most stores sell. As far as plating goes....cad is usually not a problem. Chrome is a different story. I've gotten some tongues and clips back with all of the logo's obliterated....making them worthless in my opinion. Talk to your plater and explain the importance of keeping all of the "IC XXX" markings, etc. If you can get your plater to strip the old chrome chemically, i.e. in acid, and go easy on the copper, you can usually get a good job and not destroy the writing. Hope this helps. Chuck

[Dale Pearman]

Re: Seat Belt Restoration

Thanks for the info Chuck. What kind of red dye did you use? I'm looking for that funky orange/red color typical of 59 to 61 belts. Varooom!


CLICK HERE

[Chuck G.]

Re: Seat Belt Restoration

Hi Dale. Believe it or not, I've never done red. I've done Black, Daytona Blue, Saddle, even that funky steel blue/gray 58 color. Best suggestion is to buy a box of RIT or Tintex Red and experiment on some old NCRS T Shirts. Chuck