Replacement shoulder belt inertial reels in a Cherokee.

There was a thread a few months ago on this topic. After seeing that
information, a friend of mine installed a $150 inertial reel from
Chief aircraft in a PA28-180 as a replacement for one that had frayed
and stretched and was not retracting well.

Overall the installation went well and the shoulder belt works as it
should. The mechanism was a bit larger than the original inertial
reel so the plastic cover over the reel had to be shimmed away from
the cabin wall about 1/8' to maintain clearance from the reel. This
was done with nylon tube spacers and longer cover mounting screws.
He's happy with the results.

The co-pilot shoulder belt was also not keeping tension. He noticed
it worked well with the plastic cover removed but not when the cover
was in place. That belt is now also keeping tension after he spaced
the cover about 1/8' away from the reel.

The other problem he had was the shoulder belts not attaching securely
to the mushroom on the lap belt. He cut short lengths of silicone
rubber tubing (available in hobby shops as fuel line for model
engines) and pushed them onto the mushrooms as friction bearings. Now
the shoulder harnesses attach to the lap belts securely.