General Rear Centre Seat Belt Locking in Retracted Position

[molla elicoidale]

My centre rear seatbelt is locking itself very tightly against the backrest. Even with the car on level ground, the only way to release it is to tilt the backrest forward to create some slack, remove the seat base, unbolt the belt's bottom mounting, and let it retract before pulling out.

When fully deployed, there are no signs of damage to the belt, but it appears to have been getting trapped. This is evident from a number of tight crease marks (not actually folding over) in the belt a few inches below the point where it dissapears into the seat back.

Because the inertia reel is mounted inside the seat back I can't see what's going on and the backrest doesn't have any obvious means of being dismantled.

If anyone has experience of this problem, can they tell me:

1. How to dismantle the seat back - do I have to rip off the carpet attached to the rear?

2. Can you identify another Fiat, GM or even generic inertia reel replacement.

Typically this has cropped up just a week before the MOT is due, so any early advice would be much appreciated.

 

[bobbyblue]

A friend of mine had this repeatedly happen on his Stilo Multiwagon, the only way he cured it was by replacing the seat belt assembly, I can't remember exactly what caused it but I think an internal spring had broken and it was allowing the ratchet inside the reel to stay locked, going over bumps in the road made it tighten even more.