How to remove a seatbelt from its reel

I recently washed the seatbelts from my car in a washing machine and it is necessary to remove them from the reel before putting them in the machine.

You may want to just replace the reel yet have rare hard to find seatbelts, such is the case with these beige seatbelts for the 406, to get another set would require buying new reels and belts from the dealers or a full leather interior used both options are not cheap.

Its quite a simple job, just do it one side at a time because the belts only work on one side and take note of the correct orientation to put them into the reel because putting them in the wrong way round will mean the reel wont reel back out.