Safety is a perceived notion of protection from injury or death. It comes with a level of loss of Freedom. You give up some freedom for the expectation of added protection from injury or death. In the quest for prevention of injury or death, nothing is perfect, everything can miss the goal. The best one can hope for is to increase the odds of survival. Every safety feature known to man was created and written because of, and with, the blood of those that have died before us. More and more "safety features" have a history of actually providing more protection then other "safety features," but the correct way to weigh any advantage is to compare the odds against the "safety feature" not being present and it being present. Seat lap belts fall into that category, when compared to no lap seat belts. The odds of survival increase dramatically with the addition of the lap belts compared to none being there. Lap belts with a shoulder belt adds another step up in the level of protection. There are huge numbers of documented results showing the increased odds of survival with seat belts. Those numbers also show that many people have died with or without the seat belts, and many have survived with or with out the seat belts. The improvement in the odds of increased survival with seat belts is large enough that most government and racing sanctioning bodies require the use of seat belts. If you choose to not play by their rules, you may lose the opportunity to play with them on their play ground. From my real life experience, I have survived a crash in a vehicle that was equipped with lap belts I chose not to use. Since that experience, everything I drive is equipped with lap and shoulder belts, and the vehicles don't move with out their use, by everyone seated in the vehicle.
Well stated Gene, I agree and use belts. Back to the topic of which belts and how to mount said belts. I’m in the process of building an Early Dodge Dart. I’m trying to determine how best to mount a shoulder harness, the lap belt part should work with the available mounting spots, not sure if I can make a shoulder harness work without a roll cage. Hope I’m not hijacking the thread. Some good stuff has been posted. Dan
Here's another source which I don't think has been mentioned: https://www.retrobelt.com/ Another possible source for OEM-style (at least late '90s GM) seat belt anchor plates: https://www.tanksinc.com/index.cfm/...ct_id=827/category_id=-1/mode=prod/prd827.htm No personal experience with either of them, just saved the links.
Agree with the above. But we know safer would be a roll cage with a 5 point harness and a Hans device and a new full face helmet. That sounds absurd but where does reasonable risk and absurdity split? Also curious, were the early shoulder straps that we often left hooked into the headliner clips mounted so high that they were worse than none at all? Seems by today’s recommendations they were dangerous. D
Where I drive, I see more cows than cars. Recently moved to Lincoln county KS, population...3100 Gimpy, trust me I will never crash in San Francisco
I mean, I wouldn't want to hit a cow, either! I remember visiting Pittsburgh, New Hampshire in the 1990s and they had a road sign counting the deaths by moose strikes. And out here, I know a gentleman in Kemerer, Wyoming (population is under 3k), whose daughter died by hitting an elk. The road she died on has a reputation for hitting wildlife. It's a long, lonely country road. I'm all for freedom, so do what you must but realize there's plenty of ways we can wreck. That said, in a thread asking for input on what belts and where to place them, there's no real reason to advocate not using any.
A seat belt keeps your butt in place and keeps you from being thrown out of the car or bouncing around all over the interior. I've seen too many single car roll over deaths where the vehicle could have been rolled back on it's wheels and driven off where the driver got thrown out and the vehicle landed on them or their head hit a hard object but the vehicle was far from destroyed. A gal my wife worked with was one of them when she lost control of her Dodge Durango on black ice on the way to work. If she had had her seat belt on she would probably have walked away with a few bruises. I won't say that shoulder harnesses won't make things a lot safer though I packed a bruised shoulder with the mark of the shoulder belt for a couple of weeks after being rear ended in my OT car and shoved into a Johnson Barrier in a double impact thing. I'd have had some broken ribs even with the padded steering wheel in that car.
Yep, it's not possible/practical to install shoulder belts in many early roadsters, for example, but I'll still be installing lap belts in mine. Lap belts aren't as good as shoulder belts, but they're quite literally better than nothing.
I have the shoulder belt top anchor point on both my 48 Plymouth coupe and my 49 Dodge pickup mounted in the door post behind the door. Older Dodge Darts covers a lot of ground. Does it have a door post behind the doors? That door post would be a good place for a shoulder belt to anchor to as long as the post is behind your shoulders when you are seated. The next option would be to attach to the reinforced area above the side windows. That would likely need to be one of the older style where the lap belt and shoulder belt connect at the buckle and are separate belts, unless you don't mind the 3 point belt crossing the side window ares 2 times (the re-tractors mount on the floor and the belt has an anchor point up higher and the end of the belt is attached to the seat frame, or the vehicles floor beside the seat, then the belt is pulled across the passenger). You would want the upper anchor a bit farther back on the roof rail to reduce how high it is above your shoulder (the farther back that top anchor is, the better the angle over your shoulder becomes, as long as the belt is long enough. A lot of the modern cars with the belts attached to the seat have them attached to the top of the high back extra reinforced seat frame and at the seat frame below the bottom seat cushion. A few years ago we took the seat belts out of one of the Chrysler "cloud named " cars that had rear seat shoulder belts, the re-tractors on those belts were built into the package tray against the "C" pillar. (the re-tractor was at the upper anchor point) Those re-tractors sat at a pretty goofy angle, if you were going to try to install them in an older vehicle, you want to be sure you have them set at the proper angle, or the retract mechanism won't work properly. Basically that upper shoulder belt anchor needs to be behind your shoulder and above the shoulder, but not going around your neck.
Thanks Gene, good info I’ll have to play around with the mounting points. My Dart is a 66 2 door. Dan
To me it’s not about eliminating risk. It’s about mitigating. It’s the same reason I put new tires on. It’s the same reason I upgraded the brakes. It’s the same reason I did everything I can to make it LESS risky of a vehicle. Coming from years of driving one of the most unsafe vehicles ever imo (vw buses) it’s all about making it as safe as it CAN be reasonably. Not making it risk free. Then there’s the defensive driving aspect too.
Those ^^^^ would be the mounting plates I would use. But I would not spot weld them under the floor. I would clean the paint/ coatings of the floor and glue them with Bostik/Simson ISR 70-03 so the load is dissipated over a larger area than spot welds. This glue has a tensile strength of 246 psi and a shear strength of 362 psi To give you an example the mounting plates for my race car harness are 6.55 in2 so there is 1611 lbs tensile and 2311 lbs shear strength on the plates. So with extreme loads on these plates ^^^^ the floor will deform around them absorbing forces. And the glue won't rip the sheet metal like a weld would. But these plates ^^^ won't comply to our standards in NZ [the reason why they don't comply is they haven't been tested by the govt .... It's purely bureaucracy that's all] But they will pass inspection at the track. The FIA require 42 cm2 minimum area of the plates [65mm x 65mm] or [2.56" x 2.56"] I'll crawl under my race car later and photograph my mounting plates [and edit this post] you can do everything correct and be vigilant but still cannot compensate for human stupidity. The other day I was approaching a red light when a person on a brand new Vespa decided to change lanes [behind my peripheral vision] and drove full throttle into the back door of my car. I was going about 15mph and stopped within a car length. If I was going slower he probably would have been run over. If I was going too fast he probably would have missed me
My coupes a tad bouncy, I feel a little secure belted in, plus getting ejected in an otherwise survivable accident would kinda suck. Belts are traditional in my car
Karrynzl, Those seat belt mounting plates go under the floor pan. The bolt that holds the belt passes through the floor pan, through the mounting plate, and threads into the nut on the bottom. The only reason they are spot welded to the floor pan is to simplify installing the seat belt bolts, and so the mounting brackets don't fall on the floor if the seat belt bolt is removed. The spot welds do not add any structural support to the mounting plates, beyond holding them in place until the bolt is installed and tightened. You may bond them if you wish, but its overkill for the intended purpose. Those seat belt mounting plates are only spot welded to the floor pans on all the of the Auto company's factory built vehicles that are sold in the USA. Actually only 4 spot welds within 1" of the bolt holes in the floor pan of those I have seen (which is thousands of them, I replaced rusted out floor pans at my welding shop for 28 years). Any crash stress to those mounting plates would be trying pull them up through the floor pan.
Can't understand how a race car seat belt is not FMVSS legal. I will take my swap meet NIB-but out of NHRA date Simpsons, over the aged OEM stuff...but I did attach them to the factory mounts.
I realize that ....... When there is extreme loads on the seatbelt mounting bolt the hole will oval and rip as the floor deforms. 4 tiny spot welds move the stressed area away from the load bearing weak point [the hole with a bolt] The glue puts the sheet metal surrounding the hole into shear loads when it deforms NZ [LTSA] have some pretty good guidelines to retro-fitting seatbelt anchor plates [and they have All been Load tested] A single plate underneath requires 2 x spot welds with an 8mm hole. 2 plates with the floor sandwiched between require 2 x 5mm monel rivets And some people should not go near sheet metal with a MIG welder. and any DIYer can use the glue Here is the B-pillar anchor plates on our 57 Chevy [there is no room for Doubler Plates] AND no damage to the exterior paint at all. This is how they tell you to install the plates from a USA website [f***en butchers] this is the other method I've seen used whereas I did it without cutting or fully welding . Just drill for spot weld and bolt holes The glue I mentioned is so strong that I actually glued the A-Frame coupler to my trailer with it The purpose of all this is to turn the vehicle into a crumple zone ,not the occupant's ribcage
RE: meeting US federal standards. Who cares? The feds didn't require lap belts until 1966 and shoulder belts in 1968. Maybe if you are replacing a belt in one of those cars there is an obscure requirement to meet standards. These are going in old cars that did not have belts and were not required to be upgraded with belts. Find a quality product you like and over build the mounting area - you'll be just fine.
I don't know the reasons as I haven't read the whole standard, but something about the design does not satisfy the standard. My guess is the latch handle sticking out, but I don't know. They look cool.
If you're installing seatbelts, which is in the name of safety, I'd rather go with something I know meets standards than something that is considered "for off-road and show use only". That's just me, your mileage may vary. If something happened to my kid while riding in one of my cars because I had a seat belt that didn't meet standards, I sure would care then. It's all about risk management, if there's a reasonable better option that mitigates possible risk, why not go with it?
Main difference in road and race belts I’d imagine is, the road related standard requires a consistent style of release or decoupler to ensure familiarity in an emergency situation for any occupant. Yes YOU might know that you have to lift a weird looking latch from ww2 in a certain fashion, but does your Wife or Nephew or Brother or Joe schmo off the street who might be taking a passenger ride???
I think you'll find these don't meet standards not due to a lack of strength but due to the latching system. In a crash IF you had on a long sleeve shirt and IF you had you arm in your lap and IF your sleeve had gotten behind the latch and IF when you quickly moved your arm you could in a one in a million event unbuckle your seat belt right at the instant you needed it. So it fails the .gov regulation. As for me I find most of the .gov regulations to be busy work to justify why they have a job and not something that makes your life better or safer. Again - your mileage may vary as for me I'll trust some engineer that designed those "off- road/race only" belts above the .gov attorney that has never turned a wrench or raced his Prius..........
I suspect the difference in the government approval of the racing belts is strictly due to the latching process. Modern government approved seat belts can not be "accidentally" released but need to be intentionally released, but the old military belts and the modern racing belts can be quickly released simply be pulling a simple, single, lever, either by accident, or on purpose.
I said something similar in my post right before the one you quoted. You can think what you want, but engineers also create safety and testing standards. As an engineer, I know that. You can try to argue that it's just bureaucratic over reach, but the fact is they don't meet the standards for use in highway vehicles. If there was an easy way to modify the design and make it meet, someone would have done so. Other vintage-looking styles do, so that's what I use.
More like the adjustment process. Poorly fitting or loose seat belts are dangerous With competition belts we usually need to tighten them more after a few laps Modern inertia reel belts automatically self adjust to the wearer. I cant see the average soccer mom adjusting a 4-6 point harness to drop her little angels off at school
I suspect for most people who put maybe 500 miles a year on their car this isn’t a major deal. While no one can possibly argue that not wearing seatbelts is safer in anyway than wearing them I’ll continue to take my chances. There is nothing safe about our old cars compared to modern vehicles. This may be the hoodlum in me speaking however…
A couple of thoughts/comments about seat belts. First, I worked for the CA Department of Transportation for over 8 years. During that time I worked closely with the engineer who tracked all fatal accidents that occurred on state highways in inland Southern CA. This included high high speed portions of the I-10, 15, and 40 through the desert. She kept what we referred to as the "Fatal Book" She told me that told me that it was years before she logged her first accident where an occupant wearing a seat belt was DOA at the scene. And that accident was a vehicle striking a bridge abutment sideways at a high rate of speed meaning that seat belt or no seat belt the results would be fatal. Second, most of us grew up without laws making wearing seat belts mandatory so wearing a seat belt isn't second nature. But for those who grew up with mandatory seat belt requirements wearing a seat belt is - at least in my experience. I remember having my young son start to panic with "I'm not hooked" when I started backing out of the driveway before he had fastened his seat belt.
You need to buy this book .......... https://www.abebooks.com/book-search/title/car-crashes-and-other-sad-stories/author/mell-kilpatrick/ It makes a great coffee table book About the author https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mell_Kilpatrick
The Jalopy Journal
