Since I have a convertible, over the years the color of the red seat belts has faded. Can anyone recommend a brand or particular dye I could use to get them back to factory red or close to it? Also my door carpet panels could use color freshening as well as the kick panels. Perhaps the seat belt dye would work on all of it? Thanks in advance for any recommendations.
I don't have your answer Chuck, sorry. My buddy "tried" to dye his seat belts. He used dark blue clothing die. It wouldn't grab onto the seat belt material no matter how many days he let them soak in the bucket of die. He ended up painting them with the same paint you use for seats. Vinyl paint. They came out good. You mention "seat belt dye". Is there such a thing?
The 2 ways to do it that I know of are either RIT or like SEM dye as mentioned. My 70 is a 'vert, and the guy before me left the top down always...never put it up. Black interior, the carpet and belts were faded I sprayed them with the SEM dye which is really a paint. The rug came out great, the belts came out well but stiff. After some flexing, they are fine now. Some people say the RIT damages the integrity of the belt. The bigger problem of using either is matching the shade of red.
Went from dasrk green to Landau Black . Tried RIT, wouldn't take to belt fibers. Used SEM Color Dye. Worked fine....Jim
I know there's a process with the RIT, like clean them, RIT with hot water, salt? It's on the internet someplace. But X2 the SEM dye works well, it doesn't come off.
Webbing replacement is expensive if you want to maintain the original sewing pattern around the belt hardware and buckles and, if you want the original labels removed and sewn back on the new webbing that is more $. To give you an example of what a complete seat belt rebuild can cost, I had the 3 seat Sportwagon belts completely redone including plating of the buckles, new labels to replace the original labels but looked OEM, all in black webbing, and for 6 or 7 complete belts is was $1400+ at Ssnake Oyl www.ssnake-oyl.com but I have used them for almost 30 years and I think they are the best. Everything came back like new out of the factory and since I had completely replaced the interior to look OEM I felt like I wanted the belts to look new also. Crazy money
Thanks for the advice, I am going to try the SEM as I have a door panel that is showing discoloring after 50 years and perhaps I can restore the red color along with the seat belts.
Morris Classic Concepts sells seat belt sets new https://www.morrisclassic.com/colle...atbelts-from-bucket-seats?variant=22950297539
Thanks Scott. I am trying to stay stock with the car wherever possible so I am going to try the spray paint the original belts being careful to mask the date labels. I am going to use SEM red paint for vinyl and they say it is flexible and several folks said they have used it so we will see what happens.
