Safety Belt Question for Engineers

[kacyk]

Is it possible to change the female buckle portion of the safety belt in Hummer’s second row?

Let me explain, in the second row bench of our ’03 H2’s, the female buckles lay loose (no pun intended) on the seat cushion. This made it easy for the kids to reach down and buckle themselves in while seated in boosters. In fact, the middle seat had just a lap belt making it even easier.

In ’04, GM equipped the H2’s second row with a middle row shoulder belt and changed all the female buckles to a stiff molded unit (exactly like the one in our Yukon). Now with the boosters in, the kids have trouble getting the metal tongue into the female receptacle. Hence, we have to help them whereas with the '03's, they did it themselves.

Really, I’m not attempting to be funny and after a few beers tonight I’m having difficulty articulating this problem. Nevertheless, my question is...can the female buckle assembly of an ’04 be swapped out with that of an ’03? With 5 kids anything that allows the booster bunch to snap the buckles in themselves is worth exploration.

(See in the pic below the female buckle is tucked in and pointing up on the '05 H2? On the '03's the buckles are loose thereby making them easier to manipulate by little hands.)