My 1988 Volvo 240 DL

I have a beautiful car at home. It is my 1988 Volvo 240 DL. Many of you have riden in this sweet ride .

Some have even riden in the back seat of my car but to find that none of the seatbelts work! At first when I received this car from my aunt (for free!) there were 2 working seatbelts in the back. As time went on, only 1 seatbelt worked. More time passed and no seatbelts worked.

As the safe driver that I am I always have "safety first" in mind so I don't really allow people to sit in my backseat because there are no seatbelts.

The part of the seatbelt that doesnt work is the latch, not the thing you pull down to attach to the latch. So my dad ordered some latches for my car. They arrived today. I didn't have anything better to do so I decided to install them myself.

I looked online to see if there were any instructions. I searched Google for about 1 good minute and decided to figure it out on myself.

2:30 pm in Cupertino is pretty darn hot.

So the first step was to find out how to reach my seatbelt latches. They were under the back seat. I had to lift up the backseat. It wasn't that easy. There are these little bar latch thing on the bottom of the backseat which attaches to a hook attached to the car. In order to lift the seat up you had to unhook the latch a certain way. Push down and then push forwards and pull up. And there is one on the right and left side. Add on the sunshine. Oh my goodness. It was super hot. This is when I started sweating a little bit. I didn't have a shirt on until I realized that this was going to take a lot longer than I expected and I didn't want to get sunburned so I put on a shirt. I finally was able to lift up the back seat off the hinges and then placed it in my garage. I see the seatbelt latches sticking out now. But it is under the back rest of the backseat. I find out how to take off the seat. This is even harder. I almost faint. There is this descending hook on the right and left side of the car and up that hook is a ring that keeps the back rest in place. You have to push down on the backseat and basically unhinge the ring. This was the hardest part. The right side was a lot easier than the left. For the left side. I was so close everytime but gave up because I was using all the energy that I had. I literally grunting so much. UGH. Like that. Haha. While sweat was pouring out from my head. I don't think I have ever sweat this hard in my life. It was just coming down like rain. Splashing all over my car. Well I finally got the back rest lifted up. Whew. The bolts that locked down the seatbelt latches were very tight and I had to like use my whole body to loosen them up. Tightening up the new latches was fun. I had the thought in mind where it was the safety of my passengers when they sat in my car and put on these seatbelts that I myself have tightened. Their lives were in my hands. Haha. So I tightened them until I almost fell backwards :)

Well now that is over with. I can't help but feel happy about my work. Hard work paid off yeah? I am thinking about the countless times that I can now take a full car of people and go places where EVERYONE is insured safety. I can now take my little sister places.

It was about an hour of hard work which included pain. I sweat bullets and now my arms are sore. I felt like giving up. The job seemed too hard for me to do myself. But somehow I pulled through. I continued doing what I had to do. I guess the driving force that made me keep on going was the joy that installing these seatbelt latches. It meant that I could take 3, 4, or 5 people in my car now. Go somewhere together. Enjoy each other's company.
I believe that when those times I mentioned above happens, I won't even think about the suffering I had to endure when installing those seatbelts (although at the time it seemed forever) because it was only temporary but worth it.