Seatbelt Mount Question

MickeyUSA · Post by **MickeyUSA** » Thu May 25, 2006 3:53 pm

I have an old Manx Rollbar (non chrome/ss) that I was not going to use (was going to buy a new one), but I started thinking about where to mount the seatbelt shoulder harness. Anyone see any issues with welding a tab onto the rollbar (shoulder height, both sides) and having the rollbar refinished. I'm thinking that if it is bad enough to break a good weld is it going to matter anyway.

fubar · Post by **fubar** » Thu May 25, 2006 4:39 pm

If you put a nice tig weld on it, ( stainless steel ) it should turn gold or blue. I like the look of nice welds on stainless myself. But if you want it to blend in, you can pickle paste the weld, or pollish it out with a rouge wheel. Better yet make something more like a clamp that goes around the tube. It would be adjustable in height , rules out a failure point, and you don't have to weld on your new bar.

Reverb · Post by **Reverb** » Thu May 25, 2006 6:38 pm

I was thinking of welding in a loop bar behind the seat back so I can attach a 5 point harness. Thats all I can think of without building a full cage.

tgodber · Post by **tgodber** » Thu May 25, 2006 9:03 pm

Here is a picture showing proper mounting positions for the seat belts.

DIESELDOOG · Post by **DIESELDOOG** » Thu May 25, 2006 11:27 pm

All I can say is, when it comes to seatbelts and saft related things. DON'T get CHEEP, this is your life we are talking about. Don't use a clamp all that is is one more place for it to fail when you don't want it to. Usse the drawing that Tgodber has here and you will be fine.

Jon · Post by **Jon** » Fri May 26, 2006 12:00 am

Here's what I used with my existing roll bar. Hope it helps The lower bar is for my shoulder belt attachments The side plates bolt thru the body to a plate welded on the top shock mount. Got a few more pics on home page......

shaihulud · Post by **shaihulud** » Sat May 27, 2006 10:27 pm

I don't know what your seat belt regulations are, but I recommend that you find them out and that you comply with them. If not, you could get all sorts of grief from your insurance company, or the police, or someone's lawyers if anything goes wrong. Here in Australia one of the regulations is that the seat belt must be able to be fitted or removed using one spanner (wrench) only. That is the that nuts or the bolts must be captive. That is that they must be welded to the frame or fitted using suitable encapturing methods. Also that the size of nut and bolt must be 7/16 UNF. grade 8 minimum (high tensile). Here, even though our cars are metric, the seat belt bolts must be 7/18 UNF. There is also a regulation that the seat belts must be able to support sixteen times the static load of the passenger as a shock dynamic load. The maths is a bit scary. Multiply your weight by 16. In most cases it's about the weight of the car or even more. So imagine dropping your car a couple of feet and then stopping it with one set of seat belts. Build your attachments big and strong and don't use old, frayed, sun bleached seat belts.