Captain Obvious

Excellent. Glad that the pics help. There was one other pic that I forgot to talk about, but it's so simple that it probably goes without description. However, since I already took it... Here's what the main bracket looks like with the take-up reel removed. They used plastic bushings on either side of the take-up reel. Don't lose them. Also, for those of you that are having latch mechanism issues... Can you tell by looking at the pics how the centrifugal latch is supposed to operate? If not, I can annotate one of the pics to explain what happens when you try to pull the belt "quickly" off the reel and invoke the belt latch.

Here's the pics I took of my seatbelt disassembly. First, a caveat... I didn't take these pics with the intention of using them for a how-to... I just had a dead belt with badly frayed webbing and thought I would take it apart to see how the whole thing worked. I figured I would take some pics along the way so I could refer to them again in the future if I ever needed to. Second, these pics are from a 77, and I have no idea if they are the same on other years, but hopefully they will add some value. I also have pics of the assy before I popped off the side covers, but I'm not including those since we all know what that looks like. Step1 - Wind the seatbelt as far as you can into the retractor assy to minimize the tension in the retractor clock spring. In other words, let the retractor spring pull in as much belt as it can before you loosen the side cover. Once you have the belt fully retracted, use a small screwdriver to pop off the side cover. Note that there will still be some spring tension so be careful. Do not let the side cover spin wildly after you pop it free. Hold the cover with your hand to make sure it does not spin and after you get the last retaining pin free, carefully rotate the side cover to release the spring tension. Count the number of turns it takes to release the tension so you know how many turns to wind it up when you put it back together. Interesting to note that the retractor spring function is completely separate from the rest of the assy. That means for those of you guys with retractor spring problems, all you need to do is pop off that one side and replace the spring. You don't have to mess with the latching mechanism at all. In fact, for the shoulder belt portion, you probably don't have to take the assy out of the car. You can probably do that with the assy still attached to the strut tower. Here's the retractor spring and cover after releasing the spring tension: Step2 - Pop the side cover off the other sire. Here's the latching mechanism side: Step3 - Pry off the little support arm: Step4 - Pry off the latching mechanism: Interesting to note that there isn't a whole lot that can go wrong with the latching mechanism. Probably the simplest thing that can go wrong is the tiny release spring can come off or break and then the latch will operate too easily or will not release at all. Step5 - Pull the retaining pin that holds the take up reel into the bracket. Look down into the belt reel and you will see a retaining pin. Here's the pin fully installed: Here's the pin pulled halfway out: Here's the pin pulled all the way out: Step6 - Pull out the center axle shaft and the take-up reel will come free. The belt is held into the reel by the center axle, so once the axle is removed, the belt webbing can be removed from the take-up reel: Reassembly is the reverse of disassembly.

Gotcha. I'll go along with that. They could do that for even less than $1.29!!

Mike, Thanks, I got it now. EScanlon is right in that it is caused by the fact that the numbers and shift pattern are molded and have height to them. Those shadows are actually white paint on the sloped sides of the raised numbers and lines. From looking at the pics that EScanlon posted, it appears to me that they molded (or maybe vacuum formed) the black part out of black plastic and then painted all the white features on by hand. Then they potted the top part in a clear material. I wasn't there when they made that thing, but here's what I see happening... First they mold the black plastic disk. Then they fill (inlay sorta) the outer two rings with white paint and wipe or buff off the excess resulting in a quality edge. Then they paint the raised letters. Then they mold the top dome in a clear acrylic or epoxy. All for about $1.29

Mike, What are "drop shadows"?

I took a quick look out there for documentation available and found some people selling manuals for the KP-8005, but nothing free. I would agree with your power wiring assumptions (red and black), but I'm not so sure of the speakers... Power antenna outputs weren't all that common in 77, and I have no idea if your 8005 has one. Two of those three unidentified wires are clearly speaker left and right, but the third unidentified wire might be return for the speakers. It depends on how they designed the output amp. They might return the speakers to ground (black) or they might have used a floating return from the speakers on one of those three unidentified wires. And the problem is it might cook it if you hook it up wrong. You can hope someone here knows old Pioneer or you need to buy a manual. I could tell you for sure if I opened it up and looked at the guts, but I don't want to try to get into that remotely. I might be able to help you verify if one of those three wires is truly an antenna control with some simple ohmmeter tests if you're proficient with one of those. :bulb: Hopefully someone here knows old Pioneer... :classic:

Thanks again Mike. Do you have any insight into the timeline for those two alternators? In other words, was one of them the first version and then then they switched to a different version, or were those two varieties both available at the same time on different cars?

Hi Carl, Well I can point you to where the radio is on the wiring diagrams, but because of how badly they're botched (on 72 and 73), I'm not sure if they will provide much useful info. The 74 seems to be OK. On the 72 and 73 diagrams it's a little to the left of dead center of the drawing, below the starter and the fuse block. Also interesting to note that there's different wiring diagrams for US/Canada than the rest of the world. The rest of the world got two speakers and it's all shown. The US and Canada apparently got a radio, but zero speakers. :laugh: On the 74 diagram it's in the lower right hand quadrant to the right of the multifunction combination switch.

Glad to help. I'm out of town at the moment on questionable security, slow speed internet access. I'll post the pictures I have when I get home in a few days. One question though in the meantime... Are you guys having trouble with the retractor spring function that pulls the belt back into the assy, or are you having trouble with the latch that locks in when you try to pull the belt out quickly?

Cool. Glad that worked. By the way, did you take a look at the early wiring diagrams? If so, were you able to find the speaker anywhere? Am I just missing it, or did they really botch the radio part of the diagram?

So is my black plastic faux leather knob and insert factory for 77? When I got the car, the insert was already loose. It stays in by itself simply with friction, but it's not glued.

Thanks Jeff. My alternator was installed by my PO, so I have no idea what happened... Maybe there were sleeves included and he didn't use them, or maybe there wasn't anything like that included at all. In any event, making a pair or spacer sleeves sounds like the best plan at this point. Thanks again for the data point.

Thanks for the info Mike. The terminals on my alternators are labeled F, N, E, and A. There is no "P" on either one. Does that tell you anything?

Carl, I've been thinking about your radio swap some more and I finally got the chance to look at some of the wiring diagrams. The first thing I noticed is that the early wiring diagrams appear to be incomplete in the radio area. The 72 and 73 diagrams show the radio, but don't show the speaker wires. In fact, I can't find the speaker at all on the US/Canada wiring diagrams for either 72 or 73. There's a radio, but no speaker. It's not until 74 that the speaker and it's wires are included on the diagrams. The second thing is that the colors that you listed above don't match the wiring diagrams. So I'm wondering about the wiring colors that you listed above... Are those colors from the connector sticking out of the dash where you plug in the radio? Or are those the colors of the wires coming out the back of the radio itself? The early wiring diagrams don't show the connector off the back of the radio either, and it's not until 74 that they for that right as well. So it's clear that the wiring wiring diagrams are a questionable source of information, but after looking them over, there do seem to be some consistencies, so here's what I think you've got going on: 72: 1) Blue is power to the radio. 2) The speaker wires are the white derivatives (what you are calling gray is actually "old and dirty white"). 3) Red (are you sure it isn't red with a blue stripe?) is used for faceplate illumination. The reason I say that is there is a red/blue that is fed to the radio for this purpose. I'm thinking that either you missed the blue stripe or they changed the color right at the radio pigtail and dropped the stripe? 4) Ground for the whole shebang is made mechanically through the radio chassis itself? Do they mount the 72 radio in metal all the way to the body? 74: Same as 72, but they included a dedicated ground wire instead of using mechanical chassis mounting. 75/76: 1) Blue is power to the radio. 2) The speaker wires are the white derivatives. 3) Green/white is faceplate illumination supply side. 4) Red (with blue stripe?) is faceplate illumination ground side through the dimmer pot. 5) Black is ground. I know there are unanswered questions with the above, but if all the above makes sense so far, there are some easy ways with a meter to confirm the assumptions above. Let me know if you want to go through that far.

I don't know if the retractor assys are the same for all the years, but I just took a 77 apart yesterday and took some pics. Would it help to post them?

I'll make you an insert. Send me a PM.

Thanks Arne. Out of curiosity, any ideas as to what constitutes a "later" alternator? The reason I ask is that I compared my alternator (the one in the pictures above) to another alternator which I believe to be original from 74, and the holes on both were all the same size (bigger than necessary). I guess it's academic though, because the answer to my original question is "No, there were no spacers or bushings used", right? I'll make some bushings for mine. I'll make one of them shorter than the ear is wide (like you suggested), but I'm thinking I'll include some feature on the other ear to make it a more snug fit on the mounting bracket. It's loose enough now that I'm concerned I'll crack an ear off if I torque that sucker down without some kind of spacer in there. My PO used a washer, and if I'm going to make bushings, I can do better than that.

I took my alternator off and in the process, I noticed that the lower bolt holes are significantly larger in diameter than they need to be. In other words, the bolts fit through the holes and there's still a lot of wiggle room. The lower bolts could be larger in diameter and still fit. I've seen this done on other cars where they pressed in a tight fitting bushing into the holes that slide a little bit as the bolts are tightened. These bushings account for the fact that they can't hold the tolerance on the distance between the alternator mounting holes. But, I don't have any of these bushings on my alternator and I'm wondering if this is normal, or if I'm missing pieces. I'm wondering if my PO got this rebuild and was supposed to move something over from the old one to this one? Here's the alternator: And here's the lower bolt holes in question:

Yup. I bet all your threads stripped out and so your previous owner gooped it up with epoxy and then shoved it onto the shaft to set-up. Out of curiosity, how are you going to rethread it?

Does this answer your questions about sizing? I was going to post this one at first too, but I was worried that I was hogging too much bandwidth. The scale is in hundredths. In other words, each of the smallest divisions is .010 inches:

The green/white wire on the 280 radio is for faceplate illumination.

Heh. Sounds like a typical "old car sat for a long period of time and now it just doesn't run right sometimes". Still could be just about anything. Taking it to the shop that has some familiarity with vintage stuff sounds like a plan. Let us know what they find?

Here's some good shots of my 5 speed shift pattern emblem. I've got the black plastic faux leather knob with the red insert: Insert popped out of the knob: Shot through an eye loupe trying to get as close as possible: If there's any other shots that might help, let me know and I'll try to do what I can.

Well I'm guessing that if you don't smell gas, then you should be OK for the time being. I once fixed a plastic gas tank for a piece of lawn and garden equipment by making some brass feed-throughs. If you get completely desperate, something like this would probably work on your vent tank as well. Clearly not worth the effort I put into it, but if you find you've still got a problem and the simpler solutions don't hold:

All of those designations you are using (M10, M12) are for straight threads. The hole you are trying to plug is probably a tapered thread (not a straight thread) and if that's the case, then none of those "M" size designations are the right ones. That aside... My suggestion for any of the holes you are trying to disable would be to screw the original nipple back into the balance tube and then use a rubber cap for the nipple. Might not be the prettiest solution, but get the bugs worked out first, and make it pretty later if you still have any money left.