300Ce Coupe seat belt

[Adeinfrance]

Hi again. I took my 300Ce to my french mechanic Didier on Wednesday to have him look at the gearbox fluid leak. The car started fine considering it hasn't moved for best part of a year but when I got to the garage the driver's seat belt butler arm thing was still out. I opened and closed the door and started the car up etc. to try and get it to work but no joy. Didn't want to leave it out in case Didier ended up breaking it whilst in and out of the car so I pushed it back in. Was it ok to do this, have I now broken it and are they easy to fix if I have? Anybody know why it decided to stay out and not retract?. It's never played up before.
Cheers
Ade

 

[tintinmt]

The normal thing is for the main plastic gear to have stripped. In this case you are fine to just push it back in. 'Chances are that it will now not come out again, but you may well hear some grinding noises.
You have a couple of options if you want to permanently disable it or you can look at a repair. You will probably have to expose the presenter mechanism to diagnose.

 

[Adeinfrance]

Thanks for the info. When I first tried it I thought it was completely jammed so I pushed it back slowly but it took some force and it felt like it was all still connected. I wasn't there when the mechanic moved the car into his garage so not sure if it would have worked or not. Is it something I could easily change if it is broke?

 

[shanksy]

My passenger butler used to stick out for a while last year and then not retract.
I used to gently push it back in at the time, after a while the problem rectified itself and now works perfectly again.
So as long as you're careful pushing back in its possible it will be fine fine once you resolve the issue.

 

[tintinmt]

As said, I don't think you can do any harm by pushing it back in. What happens is that a flat spot develops on the main gear that drives the arm directly on the rack on the underside of the arm. As you push back it may well re-engage and hence you will be pushing against the motor. As said, you will need to diagnose the problem before planning a fix, but it will most likely involve removing the panelling inside the car that covers the mechanism. Another cause of failure is the micro-switches that are on the mechanism. Also, there are various inputs that the controller uses to determine the position the arm should be in at any given time. With your car you should be able to source parts from a scrap car. The other coupes of the era share the same mechanism to a great extent.