Replacing seat belt guides

**Muzz258** · 02-04-2016, 07:53 PM

Have standard seats fitted to my 2.0L Z3 and both seat belt guides where broken. Read up about how to do the job and gave it a go. It didn't go well as I have heated seats. As I was slowly pulling the cover off the top of the seat and cutting though the glue, I could see the heater wires. They looked small and easy to break. There was going to be a lot of gluing to do to put it all back together. So I stopped, looked and considered.

I ended up cutting the stitching in the seam by the guides to give access to do the job, then stitched it back up from the outside. It took about 1 1/2 hours per seat, working quietly and with patients.

Steps:
1) Disconnect the battery, remove the seats. Give the air bag system at least 10 minutes to dissipate any stored energy from the time you disconnect the battery to when you unplug the seat wiring.

2) You want to release a bit of fabric pressure on the seat belt guide area. Release the seat cover joint at the rear bottom of the back of the seat. This will allow you to pull the bottom flap through to the front of the seat.

3) Release the cover joint that goes up the back of the seat.

4) Push the seat cover around a bit to release the fabric pressure off the seat belt guide area. Don't go cutting through lost of the glue (blue stuff in my seats). This is when you may damage the heated seat wires.

5) With a sharp knife or "quick unpick" (seamstress tool) cut only one stitch in the middle of the seam where you want to work. Slowly unpick the sticking in both directions to give you room to work. Keep the unpicked threads intact and long. You'll need the length when restitching the seam.

6) Remove old guides. The retaining clips popped off with the use of a screw driver for one seat. The other was stubborn, so the stems got cut off with a set of parrot beaked cutters.

7) Fit the new guides. I found that I could add the new backer and keep the old backer that was sown into the seat. It was easiest done by fitting the bottom clip first, then the top clip. This is due to a cross seam in the seat being lower to the bottom clip. I did one the other way round and it was a struggle.

8) Take two 1/2 circle needles (called mattress needles in this part of the world) and some strong UV rated tread that is the right color. Using the holes in the leather, loosely sew up the seam with a cross stitch pattern.

9) Now to tighten up the seam. Pull the original treads at one end tight to close up their part of the seam. Tie a knot in the end of these threads as close to the seam as possible. You want about 15 mm of loose thread that you can use to tuck into the finished seam so as to high the end. Trim the thread to length. Do the same with the original threads at the other end.

10) Slowly pull tight the new stitching, tucking the leather into the seam as you go. When its all tight and looking pretty, tie off the treads as close to the seam as possible and leave about 15 mm of loose thread on the end.

11) Use a small screw driver to gently push your loose ends into the seam to hide them. There, the hard parts all done.

12) Reassemble the cover on the seat

13) Install the seat in the car

Photos:
1) Showing the bottom flip (black strip) pulled through the seat cover pushed to release fabric tension on the guide area
2) Unpicking the stitching towards the top
3) Unpicking the stitching towards the bottom and the cross seam
4) Seam opening with old guide removed
5) Completed work. Yes I only had black thread and it looks disgusting. It does let you see the stitch pattern I used. Will be getting white UV rated thread when next in the city and redoing the stitching.

DSC03201.JPG DSC03202.JPG DSC03203.JPG DSC03205.JPG DSC03248.JPG

**esses** · 02-04-2016, 08:57 PM

Nice! I like this approach better than most of the others.

**deni2s** · 02-05-2016, 03:09 AM

This should go to some knowledge base/faq thread. Never even thought of this approach, but I like the idea.

**TurboBimmer** · 02-05-2016, 09:13 AM

Looks easier this way.
Could you give more details on the sewing part. The original sewing was done from the inside, but now you only have access to the outside of the joint.

**4Driver4** · 02-05-2016, 09:38 AM

What about sewing in a zipper?
...you know, so you can replace it again when it breaks in 6 months? #poordesign

**Muzz258** · 02-05-2016, 11:02 AM

Thank you for the kind responses. I really enjoy the sharing of knowledge in this forum and wanted to contribute some of my successful ideas.

Yes a Zipper is a good idea and one that I considered. Its very hard to install a zipper into an existing seam and have it look good at a quality that matches the car. It will introduce more gap into the seam. The seam will bag. This part of the seat is very easily seem, so the quality of the craftsmanship needs to be very good. I considered that installing a zip was beyond my ham-fisted sewing capability.

I'll see if I can draw up some pictures of the stitching pattern used and post them later today.

**s8ilver** · 02-05-2016, 03:14 PM

Somehow my originals are still intact. Is there anything to do (from the outside) to keep them that way, short of those ugly Velcro strap thingys? I'm surprised no one (to my knowledge) has made these in steel or aluminum (black anodized would look great) so they were a one and done fix.

**Z3MROADY** · 02-05-2016, 05:09 PM

Originally Posted by s8ilver

Somehow my originals are still intact. Is there anything to do (from the outside) to keep them that way, short of those ugly Velcro strap thingys? I'm surprised no one (to my knowledge) has made these in steel or aluminum (black anodized would look great) so they were a one and done fix.

After I installed the new ones I used black electrical heat shrink tubing to give them a little support

**esses** · 02-06-2016, 12:51 PM

this is great. I added this to the "seatbelt guide fix" thread I'd started some time ago.
http://www.bimmerforums.com/forum/sh...list-them-here

**Muzz258** · 02-06-2016, 03:32 PM

Thank you Esses

Its interesting looking at the other seats in the link. There are a number of different styles of seam in the seats. My approach works for the simple single stitching seam. Cutting into a double or triple stitch seam would require a bit of investigation at the end of a seam that is hidden to see how it is constructed first.

**Whistlehead** · 06-18-2018, 11:02 PM

In less than an hour after going to ACE hardware buying M5 3/4” long black screws, screw caps had both guides replaced. Used screw tunnel as a guide to drill with smaller drill bit than original screw. Then went back with same drill bit diameter as screw after rimming out hole allowing new screws to eventually firmly screw through. Took a sandbelt and reduced screw tunnel to 1/8 allowing the seal to be flush, you can use a file or hot blade knife. Then a drill bit slightly larger than screw head and drilled depth of screw head. Screw attach to original screw holes and then a little touch of super glue to place screw caps over screw heads.
Didn’t use metal washer which allowed to flush up against leather seat securing into original screw holes into seat frame. Much better than the video or other recommendations. The auto suppliers should be ashamed selling without notifying, but instead they elude as original BMW part. Removing the seats and cover is BS, sorry guys, hope the Case of beer and two extra large pizza came in handy. I barely finished my beer on the instal and it’s more secure than relying on the leather cover to support the guide.

Tried several times to post pictures by step without any luck. If you want pics send a request bertbaird@aol.com

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