SEAT BELTS???

[Brian Wilkinson]

Greetings seat belters

I am of the school of thought that a carefully considered seat belt, even
if under-engineered is better that being propelled out thru the suicide
doors or passenger having a face incised with wiper motor. Some impediment
to an unsolicited and forced exit must be good, I think. Belts have the
bonus of passenger/navigator being held in during trials and generally
keeping bums on seats when going too fast around corners and over bumps etc.

Seat belts have 7/16"NF fixings, but I did resort to smaller diameter, but
high tensile. It helps to set up captive nuts, unlesss you have very long
arms. No new holes were added except floor board penetrations. I tackled
the 3 mounting points as follows and have added my choices, mainly because
item 3 has not been mentioned before.

1) Outer floor
Utilise body mount with extra long rectangular 'washer' on underside of
mount.

2) Inner floor
Steel sub-sub frame that is fixed to rear of transmission tunnel mounts and
body sub frame.

3) Shoulder
Made up a new seat bracket to replicate the device on wheel arch. The new
bracket looks the same as a real one, but has a 7/16" captive nut added, to
which a small angle is bolted to fix seat belt. Bracket is bolted thru
wheel arch to large captive plate added below.

I believe all of the above to be better than nothing and hope not to ever
put it to the test. It is more of a worry about flipping the car and having
head ground off to the nipples on the bitumen. I understand my grouped
nipples have the choice of grease or oil. Take your choice and your chances.

Brian, TC8974





Brian Wilkinson
Project Manager
Office of Facilities Management
The University of Western Australia Fax 61 8 9380 1038
Nedlands, Western Australia 6907 Phone 61 8 9380 7874

Web Site address for information on the Office of Facilities Management:
http://www.ofm.uwa.edu.au/prswww/