Sorry Joe, but the proper method of testing a seatbelt is not by tugging
on it but by subjecting it to the same type of force that it was
designed to stop. You probably wont be able to in most cases get the
seatbelt to grab unless you are doing this while the truck is pointing
down a very steep hill. The inertia pin in the seatbelts locking
mechanism grabs and holds the belt when there is a sudden change in
acceleration (in this case it is negative acceleration, also known as
deceleration-an accident) The inertia pin travels while the rest of the
mechanism stays relatively stopped, and this is what causes it to
function. Your tug test takes the change of rate of speed out of the
equation. Otherwise, it would lock up no matter how easy you pull on
it.
Patrick J. Engram
ASE certified blah blah blah
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Fri Jun 20 2003 - 12:08:37 EDT