mOUNTING OF SEAT BELTS

[FATBOY]

What size bolt do you use on the top seat belt mount the one that goes thru the body.Also how do you fix the bottom of the seat belt on both sides .Im tring to make my ute as they wouldve done in the 60s but still pass engineering of today
regards fatboy

[Ken's 57]

Fatboy
There is a company in WA that supplies all the bolts and backing plates etc. I've recently had my belts restored and all the fittings were supplied.   
Their number is 08 9258 3666. Ask for Graham.

Cheers.....Ken

[Ed]

Fat,

in NSW, use a 7/16" UNF bolt.

The retaining plate must be at least 3mm  thick x 65 x 45 with rounded edges.

You also need a wave washer, spacer etc to allow the belt to swivel plus a nyloc or spring washer under the nut to stop it vibrating loose.

I fixed the belt reels onto a big bit of angle iron and then bolted this through the floor.  it looks pretty 60's to me.

Cheers

Ed

[Russ]

Go to the gov web site and search for ADRs (aust design rules) on seat belts i cant remember the specs but it is all on there

[mitchy]

hey ed can you show us how you mounted your seat belts into your wagon front / rear .am now about to tackle it . would be good to see how it was done regards mitch

[Paul In Ireland]

Just wondering what the rules are there in regard to 3 point shoulder belts? We have a guy in an american car club I am in here with the v8 utes we have and we were going to change our lap belts to 3 point style. This guy looked in the utes and said "Don't do it!"

He said when you look at the older style vehicles, those with bench seats that do not have head rests (or neck supports to use their proper name according to him) you cannot use 3 point belts. "You must use lap belts." If you have an accident, and are using 3 point belts on a car without neck supports, just after impact your 3 point belt will hold you and then your body is then thrown back into its seat. If you are thrown back and there are no neck supports - head rests - you will do serious damage to your neck. Think about it.

If you want to fit 3 point belts you must modify your seats to take properly fitted neck supports. Otherwise, use lap belts as that is the correct design for the old bench style seating.

We kept our lap belts....

[customFC]

Paul.
I would think that the steeringwheel and the non-collapsable steering column would do more damage in an accident.
Regards
Alex

[Johns]

Interesting view point Mark, doesn't make much sense to me.

Remember that all lap belts do is stop you being thrown through the windscreen and sometimes not even that - people have been known to be thrown out of lap belts. How is your neck any better off with no restraint at all? I guess it depends on a choice between a smashed face and whiplash and just whiplash

Cheers
John

[RET]

Precisely. Sorry, Paul, but that advice sounds arse-about-face to me.

Better whiplash than a steering column through the heart, thanks all the same.

As Bill Cosby once said about lap-belts: "the seatbelts aren't for the driver, the seatbelts are so the ambulance crew doesn't have to hunt for the bodies."

RET

[Spinner]

Paul,

I'm gunna chime in with the others and say that your friend with the seppo club needs to sit straight so that it dribbles out of both sides of his mouth - evenly.

Let's look at some different scenarios.

1)  No seat belts.  In an accident the occupants of the car are tossed around like rag dolls.  Some might get ejected from the car.  Fairly serious injuries are the result.

2) Lap seat belts.  In an accident, the wearer gets head injuries.  The belt holds a person around the waist, they 'fold' around the seat belt, clout their head with their knees if there is enough room.  If not, they develop a 'headache' from the front seat (if in the back) or the dashboard.  On the return, the wearer will quite likely be flung back so that they get a whiplash injury.  The las seat belt holds the wearer in the car.  The wearer almost always gets abdominal injuries of varying severity from the seat belt. 

3) Lap sash seat belts.  In an accident, the wearer gets bruising across the torso and waist from the seat belt webbing.  On the return, they will get whiplash.  As the torso is restrained by the sash part of the seat belt, the wearer misses out on developing the headaches that the person in scenario two does.  Additionally, as the wearer's upper body is restrained by the seatbelt, they miss out on the varying degrees of abdominal upset that the person in scenario two does.

Paul, let his words go in one ear and out the other.  If you are going to fit seat belts to your FC, go with your original choice of lap sash belts.  I hope that you don't need to use them for their primary purpose, but if you do, you'll be so happy that you fitted them instead of lap belts.

Brett

[Ed]

so... you don't like lap belts Spinner?

if you hit something that hard in one of these old girls you're coming out in a box anyways.

[mikey]

if you hit something that hard in one of these old girls you're coming out in a box anyways.

Lap belt = closed casket 

Lap sash = open casket

Either way not a happy ending

[Glenn 'Stinky' Stankevicius]

Another consideration is the top mount point of a lap/sash belt, if it is below the occupants shoulder you rick spinal compression injuries.

[Ed]

story about seatbelts.
We recently had a vistor from India and thought I would take him for a spin in the wagon.
He sits down into the seat and I explain to him that wearing a seatbelt is compulsory in Australia.  He replied OK and then looked at me blankly.
I turn to start the car and I looked back and he was literally tied up in knots with the seat belt under one arm and behind his head…
After a little giggle I corrected him and explained they were to stop you from moving in the event of an accident.
So the next time he got in we went through the same thing over again.. I was trying very hard not to laugh, but remember this guy had never seen a seat belt before!

So a week later he had gotten used to putting the seat belt on but sometimes just forgot or didn’t care much for it.
After pulling away from the kerb one day I had to enter the flow of traffic quickly.  I gave the throttle a bit of a squeeze and the FE was at full noise in a graceful arc merging with the traffic.. lovely… I was grinning.

I glanced over to see if old Madhu was enjoying himself, but the poor bugger was tied up in his belt and looking decidedly pale, even for an Indian!

.. oops, Im guessing they don’t have many V8’s in India either..

seatbelts are damm good entertainment!

Cheers

Ed

[smithy]

   LMAO there Ed
would have fun to witness..

[Martin]

True story:

In 1965 I was travelling with a mate in his Morris 1100 - no head rests (neck supports).  A car coming the other way swerved onto our side of the road & we hit head on - combined impact speed of probably 60 m.p.h.  I was in the front passenger seat wearing a lap/sash belt.  The force on me hitting the belt twisted and pulled in the B pillar.  I undid the belt and walked away.  No whiplash. The lass in the back (no belt) suffered some injuries as a result of hitting the back of the front seat.

I'll never go without seat belts. 

I have fitted lap/sash belts to my FC - the company that did it used a captive nut on a plate that they fed up the B pillar - no bolt head on the outside.  Stinky has done similarly to his FE.

Martin

[NO NAME]

when i was a kid the guy down the road fitted a graphic equalizer to his morris 1100, anyway he was coming up the hill and showing his mate the equaliser and he took his eyes of the road and drove straight into a power pole and the front windscreen ended up in someones front yard in one peice but the passenger split his head open, maybe he headbutted the windscreen out.
 i was riding my bike across the road and got to watch the whole thing and be first on the scene to check out these two dissy dudes in there totaled morris, all the pillars were sloping forward and the roof was creased.

[ratbox]

it's all ifs buts and maybes
i've seen/heard of minor accidents in late cars with all the safty shit fitted and used and people died
and seen/heard of accidents in older cars with little or no saftey shit and the people walk away
when yor time is up yor time is up, didn't this all start with someone asking a question about mounting seat belts, so it's irrellavent what sort you have or don't have you have to do what some numb nut government pen pusher says to do

[mcl1959]

Ratbox, That's close to the most unintelligent thing I've ever read. Are you honestly proposing that seat belts are unimportant and can be done without?

Ken

[FC427]

Ratbox, Every one is entitled to their own opinion no matter how wrong they are . I was on the Tow Truck 30 years ago when there were still a lot of old cars on the road with minimal safety features and I can tell you as a fact that the occupants of these cars were hurt more seriously than in modern cars ,BELT UP AND LIVE .......FC427........