Replacing broken seat belt latch

[cmayna]

My 96 eddie bauer's drivers latch buckle is not retaining the mating tong. It feels like the button is permanently pushed in. How do you remove it? It seems that when you move the seat forward the latch assemble travels with it. Having a console there is zero room to install a torq bit.

Do I have to remove the entire seat to get to this spot?

 

[dogfriend]

You may be better off removing the seat - its not that difficult. Four bolts and one electrical connector if I recall correctly. I had to replace the seat back latch once and I just removed the seat from the truck first.

 

[cmayna]

Thanks, I woke up about at 2am thinking that maybe just removing the seat would be by far the easiest way to resolve this.

Appreciate your prompt reply.

 

[dogfriend]

I looked up removing the buckle from the seat in my 97 service manual & one of the steps is to remove the seat from the truck. You have to remove the rear track bar bolt first. So five bolts, two elect connectors if you have the 6 way power seat.