Ugly belt buckles - on topic

I am to the point of installing seat belts in my 1949 Merc. I have tried very hard to keep the car's appearance that of a mild custom. I am installing shoulder harnesses in the front seat and want them to be as unobtrusive as possible. I have all the belts etc from Julianos and everything works fine. But, the buckles both male and female are trimmed in plastic and they stick out like a sore thumb. I cannot use the chrome lift latches because they do not work with the shoulder harness.

Has anyone come up with an attactive buckle set up for a retractable shoulder harness belt? Thank you in advance for any help.

Dan

 

How about airplane seat latches? You could get a shop to stitch the new buckle into the Julianos belts.

 

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How about airplane seat latches? You could get a shop to stitch the new buckle into the Julianos belts.

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Exactly.

 

I looked and looked also- the lap belts are offered with nice buckles but the 3-point belts always have thos cheap looking plastic ones with the "globe" picture in the button.

The only solution is to have them re-sewn. You might as well pick some nice old buckles out of a wrecked car. The buckles won't be D.O.T. approved anymore but if they are sewn the same as before they should perform fine.

Why doesn't Juliano's step up with a good looking three point belt buckle?

 

Because of liability reasons most shops are reluctant to do any stiching on seatbelts.

 

http://andoauto.com/replacement.htm this place has 3-point with a cool chrome buckle,they don't have those ugly retracter things either-g

 

For what it's worth, I know you can get non-retractable shoulder harness with the chrome lift up buckle.



If you can get the same things with retractable harnesses, I'd really like to hear about it.

Also, that's the same buckle that's used in aircraft seat latches. How the hell would use Juliano belts with those latches?

--Matt

 

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Why doesn't Juliano's step up with a good looking three point belt buckle?

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I don't think that it's liability at all.

I don't think that you can use them with a retratctable setup at all.
At least not without seriously modifying and re-chroming that latch.

 

Thanks for the input guys. I'm the unlucky SOB that's doin' the interior on Bottom feeder's Merc. I can use a stainless GM female buckle (just have to figure out how to remove the GM logo.) The thing I can't find is an adjustable male buckle that doesn't look like crap. It would be easy if it didn't need to be adjustable. Here's the Juliano's setup and a GM female side-

 

What would it look like if you popped off the plastic cover on the male buckle? Might be a finger pincher... but would look better.

 

80's fords use a buckle like the GM one, but they don't have any logo like the gm ones do.

 

These seatbelts retractors are what I'm using on my lap belts and I reckon it'd be do-able to add them to the lap section of a lap-sash belt to give it a retractable function.
They cost $30 each from California Mustang.