Let's think about that. Let's assume someone is 80, and since you're in California, we'll look at California. California has had a mandatory seatbelt law since January 1, 1986, and the US government required seatbelts in all cars in 1968, but their use was not yet mandatory. If you're 80 and lived in California since before 1986, it has been nearly 39 years of your driving life that seatbelts have been mandatory. If we consider when this person was 14, 1958, they had 10 years of possible driving before seatbelts we in all new cars and another 18 before they became mandatory. Your statement that they aren't second nature is saying that these years are more significant than the last 39 years that they were mandatory. Arguably, the 39 years since then should be PLENTY of tome to make using the seatbelt feel like second nature. The younger you are, the more it should feel that way. My parents grew up without seatbelts being mandatory, in their early 70's, and seatbelts are second nature to them and every hot rod my dad has built has them. Saying it's not second nature feels like a cop out for not wanting to have to use them.
Kerry, I’ve seen the book, I’m well aware of the chances and risks I take, not trying to justify any of them. Just stubborn I suppose!
It is really a good book if people can handle a gory subject [which is why I made the coffee table comment ] It makes you realize safety has come a long way. Safety is all about risk to reward ..... In racing we are "driving on the conservative side of having an accident" The probability of an incident is high , but the consequences of an incident are low
This became a bizarre thread considering the original question. We took a turn when discussing attachment to frame vs subframe/body. Based on the one story should I assume the frame is frowned upon due to the danger of the (car) body becoming separated from the frame?
High High school friend lost his life when his driver’s seat came loose. Passenger’s seat stayed attached and he walked to the ambulance…
To answer the question...... Lift Latch belts in the widest width you can get. There’s plenty of literature of where to mount lap belts through the floor. The details should come in the instructions. If the floor is not in good shape, you have “other issues”. Lap belts installed are better than 3points dusty on the bench. Here’s my thoughts on seat belts.... Early open cars, high center of gravity..... Model T era..... Maybe Model A roadsters and Pheatons Jeep MB, CJ 2A-Cj5 without rollbars. No seat belts..... Closed cars including early Jeep’s with rollbars Belts needed. V8 to mid 60s roadsters cabriolets and convertibles Belts, a good idea.
I am 80 and lived my entire life in California. I began driving with a permit at 15-1/2 and our 2 family cars 55-56 Fords had no belts. In June 1960 I got my license and a 49 Chevrolet Pickup. After my first drive over rail road tracks the driver door opened and the next day I was at Pep Boys buying 2 sets of belts which became 3 soon after.
I knew a lady who died when a car struck the back wheel on her Model A coupe and the door opened. She fell out, hit her head on a concrete curb. The damage to the car was minimal and was repaired
Don't feel comfortable without them. They're second nature. Dad had them installed in our car by the late 50's.
1000 likes. I have heard my whole adult life do not mount the seat belts to the car's frame Make sure they are on the body of the car because the body and the frame can detach during a hard impact or get so bent out of shape going different directions that the seat belt can literally squeeze you in half.
When I had my 1964 valiant a few years ago which is the same floor pan as your 63 dart I put lap belts in there using the factory floor mounts. If I remember correctly the bungs were even threaded already I just had to chase the threads to clean out 60 years of grime and rust. I put the long side of the seat belt in the center of the car because when somebody gets out of the car the short side if an accidentally gets shut in the door won't drag the ground. I could not figure out a way to safely mount a shoulder belt and mine was a mordor (four door) model. I am realistic a lap belt isn't as safe as a shoulder belt but it is probably better than nothing and if I'm being realistic if I wanted to be absolutely safe I would probably be driving a really new full size sedan or CUV. Edit: If you look at the seat belts on the back seat you could see the mounting points of the ones on the front floor, I used grade eight hardware and I just took the head of the screw to the buffer to get rid of the yellow zinc coating to make them look Chrome same thing with the washers... If I remember correctly I ended up getting bolts out of the junkyard that were proper seat belt bolts but the reality is the grade 8 bolts were probably just fine.
Urban legend is that Zora had seat belts added to Corvettes (before they were required) so he could stay in the seat while driving in a sporty way. Having one of these cars, yeah, I can see that. Of course they're anchored with small braces under the fiberglass floor, with 5/16" hardware, so they will only keep you from being ejected in the survivable accidents, not the serious ones. Can you elaborate on how you attached them? I've used those belts with roll bars/cages, but curious about how they work in this car.
Yep! I drove our restored 56 Ford for 5 years until I could find the right color to match the Peacock blue…wife was never happy and I was uncomfortable.
The answer is actually very simple. Simpson did not pay for all the federal testing to be FMVSS legal. They may or may not be just as good or better. Then again, there may be some small problem that makes them unsafe in a vehicle street accident. We'll never know as they weren't subjected to the testing. Not being approved for street use means they are not subject to government oversight that goes along with the certification. Since our HAMB friendly vehicles didn't require belts use what you feel safe using. But be smart about how you install them and which ones you chose. If your OT vehicle had belts and you chose to use non-FMVSS belts, understand they are not legal seatbelts according to the letter of the law. The cards are on the table so play the hand you have and see if it works for you. Just be safe.
When I took my drivers test years ago, the instructor hopped in my car after checking the lights and all that stuff and told me to start the car. I told him he had to put his seatbelt on first. I think that was part of the reason I received my license on the first try!
Probably more often then you might think! The body and frame don't even have to separate, all the need to do is move different distances a couple inches to hurt you badly. Contrary to popular belief, "body mounts" are not a solid connection between the body and the frame. The purpose of a "body mount" is to allow some movement between the body and the frame, so damage to the body and the frame doesn't occur when the vehicle goes through changes in elevations in the road surface (you know, that dip between the street and your driveway that you always slow way down for?) Every time your car hits a bump in the road, the body and frame shift, that means, the body and the frame are nearly always moving in different directions. Nearly all of those body mount connection points involve rubber being sandwiched between the body and the frame. The rubber allows more movement and more control over that movement. The rubber also eliminates the squeaking and squawking two pieces of metal bolted together would have as they moved against each other. To sandwich rubber between the body and the frame requires a hole in the body (nearly always reinforced), a chunk of rubber with a hole in the center, the frame with a hole in it (often reinforced), and most of the time a second piece of rubber with a hole in it under the frame. All that is tied together with a bolt (often about 3/8" to a 1/2" in diameter and often 4" to 5" long). That bolt often has over sized washers where the rubber meets either end of the bolt, and of course a nut. Since the most of the body mount is under the floor and attached to the frame, they are always exposed to dirt, salt, water and anything else the bottom of the car is exposed to. The biggest problem is, since the body and frame are constantly moving in different directions, that water and dirt collect around the rubber and start acting like sand paper. They wear against the metal on both sides of the rubber, and on the bolt passing through the rubber's center hole. The metal (floor, frame and the sides of the bolt) gets thinner and becomes weak. Add a bit of rust surrounding the rubber part of a body mount, either on the frame or on the body (the metal rusts out around the rubber mount until there is nothing left and the rubber simply can be pulled through the rubber sized hole in the frame with your hand), or a broken or rusted away bolt (the rubber part of the mount will wear a bolt down to less then an 1/8" thick or completely separate it into two pieces so the bottom part can just fall out) will allow a car body to separate from the frame in a very minor accident. Most car bodies are only attached to the frame at 4 or at most 6 locations on the passenger part of the frame. If 2 of those mounts have weakened body mounts, and the front bumper that is directly attached to the frame hits something and stops the frame from moving forward, but the body, only held on to the frame by the remaining good body mounts will continue to move until the firewall hits something solid enough to stop the body movement, and if the seat belts are attached to the frame, the belts also stop moving. If the seat is attached to the body, it (and you) keeps moving forward until the body stops. Can you see a problem here? If the car body only moved forward 3", do you have that much slack in the belts (and I would hope the belts were tighter then that), can you feel the belts cutting into you? If the belts are attached to be seat, or the car body, the frame can do whatever it wants, you are attached to the car body and are going with it. I have replaced hundreds of bad body mounts, and have replaced the metal around twice as many body mounts then that. Repairing bad body mounts and the area surrounding metal the mounts attach to, was probably 1/3 of the work I did as a welding shop owner for 30 years. I'm posting 3 pictures, a before, and an after and a front view capturing the crash damage. My truck, back in 2011. I was 4 blocks from home, the crash was a 30 mph head on crash. The cab mounts did not fail. See how far back the front tire in the the crushed fender opening. The entire right frame rail folded in 4 places, all the way to the rear axle. The right side rear axle was 3" farther back then the left side. Under the truck door you can see the frame bent downward, that would have nee about where the seat belt would have attached to the frame!! Would you rather be seat belted to the cab with the seat or to the frame? This one didn't even separate!
this is my plan for my 34 pickup and the roll bar will be bolted to the frame. Should the roll bar only be bolted to the floor?
Technically, if the roll bar is connected to the frame, the seats should be connected to the roll bar and frame. Probably splitting hairs here, if the roll bar is bolted to the frame right next to the seat that is bolted to the floor, the odds are better that the floor will remain at the same location simply because the roll bar bolts will also pass through the floor near by. But, the roll bar is still only relying on the bolts to hold it to the frame. If your going through the effort to bolt the roll bar to the frame, you might as well put forth the effort to attach the seat brackets to the roll bar as well. An extra piece of tubing attached to the roll bar for the seat to bolt to isn't that hard to do and would eliminate any question. The ultimate goal is to maintain the spacing between the belts and the driver so the tension on the belts doesn't change when the belts are needed the most. If the roll bar is only there to mount the belts to, and the seat is bolted to the floor, bolt the roll bar to the floor pan as well. I want to have the seat I'm sitting on attached to what ever the seat belts are attached to. If that object moves, I want my butt to move with the belts. I would rather not be killed by a roll bar that moved with the frame, if the frame moves in a different direction from the floor the seat was bolted to. I'm just a welder guy, I'll do what I think is correct, you do what you think is correct, and lets hope neither of us ever needs to find out if we were correct.
Not that it matters but I'm curious what did you hit or what hit you? It's funny when I think of a 1950s vehicle I think of something that's just bulletproof with the reality is in the event of an accident almost all of them don't fare real well.
The truck hit an 80s Chrysler FWD Lebaron. The lady driver made a left turn about 20' in front of me. I got my foot off the gas pedal, but never made it to the brake pedal before impact. I was going 30 mph, she was going almost as fast. She was in a line of cars and simply turned in front of me. Her car bounced backwards from the point of impact nearly 10', my 4850lbs 4x4 truck was stopped at the point of impact. That 50 cab and sheet metal was bolted to an 80 Dodge 1/2 ton 4x4 truck chassis and that frame probably took the impact much better then the much lighter 50 frame would have done. The frame was twisted enough the frame rail smashed the 360 SB Mopar oil filter on the side of the block and busted a chunk out of the cast iron transfer case. Its hard to see in the crashed side view, but that 3/8" thick main leaf on the right front is bent up at about a 45 degree angle. The truck had a Meyer's snow plow mount bolted to the frame, that snow plow bracket is broken in 4 places, and behind the front bumper is a 3/8" thick 2.5" x 2.5" angle with the "V" pointing forward (the part of the snow plow brackets the snow blade mounts to, very robust stuff), that has a 4" bow towards the rear, in it. This truck was a heavy duty, very solid, truck that had spent the 12 years before it plowing snow and pulling a car trailer. The entire truck was rebuilt about a year before the crash. Her air bags saved her butt, I got 11 stitches on my forehead and a sprained thumb on my right hand. My truck was equipped with lap belts, but I didn't wear them much, I was concerned the lap belt would put my face into the middle of the windshield (I would have been correct). Without the lap belt on, my forehead hit the header above the windshield. I had my thumb hooked around the steering wheel and it pulled the column with me. Everything I have built since the crash has had lap and shoulder belts and the vehicle doesn't move unless everyone in it is buckled up.
I've never been a "seat belts guy" but about a month ago a good friend of mine was hit by a pickup truck head on while driving the 29 Roadster that he built and he broke both legs in multiple places and an arm and various other injuries and that car didn't have seat belts.. Most of my cars have seatbelts and now I'm going to start using them.
I put a like on your post - feels strange - I don’t like what happened to your friend. Hope he recovers ok. I wear seat belts - personal choice - at present I have been evaluating how to improve the seat belts in two cars one OT one not. Dan
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