I'm preparing to clean-up my belts on my `69
They are black with the plastic buckles.
Looking for some do's and don'ts so as not to do anything "stupid"
Please share any knowledge on what works and what doesn't.
Thanks, Bob

Bob,
It may depend on how "crusty" your belts are, but this is what I did to mine.

I took a bucket of warm water and mixed in some dishwashing liquid and put the belts in there to soak. After about a hour, I took ea. one and used a small scrub brush and gave them a real going over. Rinse once or twice and then spread out to dry. It was amazing how good they came out.
I also got some "brass wool" (real fine) and polished all the chrome surfaces. It won't scratch a thing but gets the scum and oxidation off.
On the plastic parts, I used some 409 type cleaner and spent a little time with a cloth and toothbrush-look fine. Now all this took some time but not much $ and they look pretty good, but not necessarily concours show stuff. I'm happy with it. Good luck to you.
Duke

Duke's method sounds great. I had wonderful results soaking the webbing in luke warm water with Woolite. Woolite is made to work in cool water and soak clothes clean without damaging delicate fabric so I figured it would work great on seat belts. It did!

Bob,
The soaking method sounds good. I've even used carpet cleaner in the past. Both will take the stiffness out. I have also painted (plastic/vinyl paint) the plastic buckles.
One thing I'll tell you not to do. I had paint overspray on one of the belts and thought a quick trip to the wire wheel would work. Please don't do this! My stupidity ran rampant one Saturday and I lost the battle. The wheel grabbed the belt out of my hand and hit me like a Bruce Lee flying foot kick. I got a lot of questions from the Dr. in charge of stitching both the inside and outside of my upper lip. Learned my lesson the hard way. Guess it was better I didn't grow up on a farm, with all the equipment.

Ed C.

70SS 396/350 4 speed red/white
70 LS6 4 speed blue/black
00 C5 6 speed

When I got my 69 convertible, the rear seat belts were not in view. Pulled the rear seat, to find large puddles of hydraulic fluid on the pan underneath. The top motor had obviously had massive leaks. Someone had replaced the motor and lines, but was too lazy to clean up the resulting mess. (They did, however, put sandwich baggies over the metal and hard plastic buckles of the belts - duh!!) The seat belts acted like sponges, totally saturated in the fluid that had leaked out. Over a period of 4 weeks, I soaked and agitated them in a laundry soap and warm water solution, changing the solution every couple days. Also soaked them with Simple Green. Thought I had it all out. Put them back in on my Parchment (pearl white) seat. After a few days, I had nice brown stains on the vinyl upholstery. I now have fresh upholstery. Those belts will not come anywhere near it.

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Bill Pritchard
69 SS396 Convertible
"Life is short; eat dessert first." - Ogden Nash
My low tech web page (http://home.att.net/~bpritchard/index.html)

I cleaned all my belts for my 69 and a set for my sons 57 by brushing off all the loose stuff and running them through the dishwasher a couple of times. They came out looking like new. Let them hang dry.