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Common Modifications


Eneto-55

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I'm going to stick my neck out and start a new thread....

I know there is a good deal already written about some modifications, like disk brakes, master cyl, 3rd member upgrades, engine swaps, 12 V conversion, FM radio/CD players, etc.

But I'm wondering about stuff that didn't occur to much to me back when I started my P15 project (30 years ago), like seatbelts. My dad was a fan of seatbelts from way back, and he put them in our 53 DeSoto family car, I think probably soon after he bought it in 59, if I remember correctly - maybe it was some years later. So I assumed I would put in lap belts, but now I'm wondering about shoulder belts.

How many of you have done that, and how did you rig the belt retractor mechanism on the door column (or floor)? Did you use a shoulder height adjuster on the pillar, like modern vehicles have? And if you put them in the front, did you put them in the rear as well? And assuming that you kept the bench seats, did you put one in the center as well, or only for the drive plus 3 passengers?

Neto

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this has also been discussed here many time..you have plenty of suppliers, I think Jualianno's or something close to that is one and has a large selection plus mounting hardware. Others take theirs from donor cars, I do suggest inspection for fray and lots argue never take them from a car where the belts were stressed in a frontal collision. Mounting if something left to you, the design of the belt and the fact how much structural mods do you want to do to get the install in. I have used donor install with three point harness fully retractable in my cars...even with adjustable height shoulder strap for comfortable fit per passenger/driver..Is there a direct bolt in kit for your 46..not to my knowledge..especially if you are wanting shoulder straps also.

Edited by Tim Adams
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If you have a sedan, and do not mind swapping seats, Buicks have built-in shoulder/seat belts in the seats themselves. It was only available in the upscale version several years ago, but I have seen it in some of the less expensive models of late.

They are probably easy to find if one should have an interest in swapping seats.

I love the idea, but mine are all coupes, and I find the original seats very comfortable for my body type. I really find them far more comfortable than my '99 Honda Accord.

Just some thoughts tossed in to expand your choices.

Good luck!!

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If you have a four door and probably a two door with the original bench seat in it and you want to install lap belts only you will have to pull the bottom cushion and cut a slotted hole in the seat frame and line it with a piece if split rubber tubing so that the belt can pull almost straight forward over the back edge of the seat cushion. If you try to go under the frame then up and back under the seat cushion before coming out on top of the cushion if you ever need to use the belts to save your life it will pull into the cushion and allow you to move forward quite a bit.

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I've never been able to tolerate shoulder belts in a car w/ bench seats. The buckle digs in to my side. In my opinion, if you must put in shoulder belts then put bucket seats in too.

The wife's PT Cruiser has one of those annoying alarms if I don't buckle up and it has been OK with the bucket seats, but I have only driven it once for more than a few miles. Looking for a way to trick the alarm system at least while driving in Missouri. Iowa and Minnesota are primary offence states so I grudgingly put the belt on.

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Thanks for all of the input. Like I hadn't thought about the deal of having shoulder belts with a bench seat - that the buckle would be up higher. My S-10 has the split bench seat, and that doesn't bother me in that one, but then the latch end is in a plastic sheath which holds it pretty much in place away from you, and I'm also rail thin (5' 10 1/2" & 130-135 lbs).

What really bugs me is when these ratcheting type seat belts just keep getting tighter, and tighter, and tighter, until you have to take it off and start over. Drove my daughter mad when she was small. We had the hardest time getting her to put the belts on. (We lived overseas for most of her life, and there were no seat belt laws at all, and we very seldom went any place in a car. The kids might have gone to town maybe once a month or so at the most, and the rest of the time they were bare foot and free. And nearly half of the time we were in the interior, where there are neither roads nor cars.)

Neto

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  • 8 years later...

I know this is an old thread, but since I started it, and rather than start a new one about pretty much the same thing, here's what I'm planning to do for the front shoulder belts.  (I haven't decided if I'll do more than lap belts in the back seat.)

This is the B pillar seat belt adjusters I kept when I scrapped our 93 Chrysler T & C.  The plastic cover won't work, of course (way too wide, and plastic is too 'modern'), but I kept them as an example of what I''ll need to fabricate.  (I have some pieces of actual Sapele wood, and it probably would be easier to make something out of wood than it would to do it out of metal - will see.)  

The piece in the foreground is a pair of sort of brushes that fits over the slider knob, like in the 2nd photo.  

Question: How thick does the steel need to be in the pillar in order for this not to just be jerked right out in an accident, and have it flying into your face or neck?  I wish I had kept a piece of the 93 Chrysler pillar so that I could check the gauge, but I didn't.  In the last picture, you can see the clip that secured it on the 93, but I see that I have it started on the bolt backwards in the photo.  (I had done that so that I could stand it up for the first photo.)   I'm thinking that I can't use those clips, as that would mean cutting two fairly large holes (one for each clip), but if I cut a hole farther down on the pillar, I should be able to slide a single piece steel strap up into place.  (It would probably need to have a thin gauge piece welded in between the weld nuts, so that it can bend in the middle to get through a smaller hole.  Or just weld the hole back shut?)

I want to be able to adjust the shoulder belt, because I'm long in the torso, and my wife & oldest son are quite a bit shorter than I (especially my wife, of course).  I just can't stand to have the belt pulling down on my shoulder, and I think it defeats the purpose of the belt anyway.

I have also not decided if I'll use belt retractors, or just use adjustable belts (if you can even get that sort of thing anymore).  I just don't see a good place to fasten them, unless they can go under the seat, with just a belt slide piece fastened to the bottom of the B pillar.  (My car is a 4 door, so I don't have to be concerned about tripping the rear seat passengers as you would for a two door.)  If I could easily find the hardware, I would want to look at the belts out of a 72 Coronet (which is what I had back when I bought this 46) - it had a separate shoulder belt that connected onto the main buckle somehow.  You could use just the lap belts, or also the shoulder belt.  When not in use the shoulder belt clipped into a deal above the window, toward the A pillar.  (I sold that 72 Dodge back in January 1984, so I cannot remember exactly how it was.)

I also want to look at what I would need to do to reinforce or replace the original seat mounts, so that I can fasten the other end of the belts directly to the seat frame, instead of having to cut a hole in the foot rest, and then have the belts run across the top of it (as I understand some have done).  I know that someone who was writing about this said that they have only had back seat passengers a few times, but I expect to have people in the back fairly often, with the way I expect to use the vehicle.

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Edited by Eneto-55
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