Rear Seatbelts

[dg]

Hi
Anybody have any experience of fitting rear seat belts to a car without mounting points? I need to know what reinforcements are necessary and where the belt mounting points should be located. Now we have a baby I find that most of my R4 driving is done alone, as the front belt will not reach around the baby seat. If I can fit inertia reel rear belts I can get around this problem and ensure that he will be able to ride in the car as he gets older. My '68 model is very original (6v, flat wiper blades, bench seat, the lot) but I feel I will have to compromise on this one in order to make my journeys less lonely.

Grateful for any advice.
David

 

[La Poste]

Sorry, I don't know anything about fitting rear seat belts, but for my sins I did once work as a motor insurance claims negociator (in mitigation I'd just graduated from university and desperately needed to pay off my overdraft!) and so feel vaguely qualified to discuss such things as car accidents...

Basically, the motor manufacturers have made a really good job of convincing motorists that unless they have side impact bars, two-dozen airbags, ABS, and goodness knows what else, we're all going to get killed by out-of-control double decker buses if we venture out onto the roads. To a certain extent they have a point - it could happen - but it's actually about as likely as winning the National Lottery jackpot.

During my time as a claims negotiator (9 to 5, five days a week - that's an awful lot of accidents...) I only encountered a handful of accidents where anyone had been injured beyond a bit of whiplash (maybe 1 or 2 percent) and just as many involved 'safe' cars (Volvos, etc) as 'unsafe' cars. The other 99 per cent of accidents were low speed shunts, usually someone going into the back of someone else at traffic lights or a roundabout (sorry to bring back the memories Clem!). I only ever handled ONE claim involving a fatality (in a Saab 9000 - hardly an 'unsafe' car).

If you add the fact that driving an 'unsafe' car makes you drive more safely (I used to drive my Mercedes like a lunatic because it felt indestructible, but am far more careful in my 2CV on account of its non-existant safety features) you should never have the need for rear seatbelts. Someone once said that the best safety features in a car would be a ten inch long steel spike in the centre of the steering wheel and no seatbelts. I tend to agree - think how carefully you'd drive!

What I'm trying to say is, drive sensibly, assume everyone else on the road is suicidal, and don't worry too much about passive safety because the accident will probably never happen, and if it does it almost certainly won't hurt as much as you think.

La Poste

PS My first R4 was written off twice during my ownership: once by a VW Passat jumping a red light and hitting the front, and once by an oak tree jumping out in front of me late one night. I walked away uninjured from both accidents, and whilst the first wasn't a particularly heavy impact the second was enough to completely destroy the chassis and body, as well as crack the gearbox casing, snap one of the driveshafts, etc. Not the cleverest thing I've ever done ops: but it does prove that an R4 can protect its occupants better than you might expect.

 

[malcolm]

I've attached a few photos of the GTL rear seatbelt mountings. The mountings in the floor are the two black dots in the middle of the photo. Those and the mountings in the wheelarch (represented in the photo by a large rusty hole) take the form of a 3mm plate behind the body panel with a big nut (17mm spanner, can't remember the thread size - is it 10mm?) welded to the reinforcement. The reinforcement plate in the floor is about 250mm*150mm and the one in the wheelarch is maybe 150mm*150mm. Figures are from memory.

I can't see any reason why a competent welder couldn't fit the mountings safely. The GTL rear belt is a plain (not inertia reel) type. Must be possible to buy universal ones. Inertia reel belts would be possible but you'd need to add a further reinforcement to the rear of the wheelarch to mount the inertia reel.

If you are in any doubt as to the importance of seatbelts, then read Professor Ken Freeply's research "Animal Accident Strangeness" on http://www.sniffpetrol.com/issue056.html (2nd article on the page).

 

[dg]

Thanks Guys!

La Poste, I have to agree that modern motorists do seem to try harder to have accidents, to make up for the excitement being taken out of their lives by all those safety features. In this instance it is as much a case of restraining a small child as anything, although I remember being driven around, as a child, in the back of a mini van that didn't even have seats, let alone belts, and sitting in the boot of a renault 16! How did my parents cope with 4 small children, un-restrained, on the 200 mile trip to see our grandparents?

Clementine, you are a star. That's just the sort of info I need. I have discovered that Securon make an innertia reel rear belt for the 4, which is the type that can be mounted at any angle, so I assume that it must be fixed to that upper mounting point.

I don't suppose anyone out there has an old gtl shell knocking about, that they would be prepared to cut those upper mounts out of and send them to me, for a small fee?

Thanks again
David

 

[malcolm]

I've got Securon seatbelts in my MGB. They are pretty good - there are little screws you can twist to set the vertical position. If you struggle finding a supplier try Moss Motors. (Only not the Manchester branch - I'm still annoyed with them for selling me an unsafe coil over damper conversion and then not giving my money back when it snapped. I prefer the Darlington branch - they are very nice).

I'd be inclined to mount the inertia reel bit in the handy space on top of the rear wheelarch and then fit the loop that comes with the seatbelts to the rear mounting point. You'll need to devise some sort of mounting for the inertia reel bit. If you go overkill with a big steel plate that would pull the entire wheelarch out of the car before it moved then I'd think you would probably be OK.

I'm sure Liam (liam4r4spares) will be able to cut the rear mounting out of his next scrap car - might be worth sending him a private message (pm) or checking through his posts to find his contact details.

Of course you could just swap your nice '68 bench seat model for a nice GTL (maybe a yellow one?).

:clementi:

 

[Mr Jelly]

Like the following from Sniff Petrol very much...

"...whilst a ladies' handbag would smash into the back of your head with a force equivalent to a very fat kitten."

:lol: :lol:

 

[GhettoPrincess88]

Hi
Anybody have any experience of fitting rear seat belts to a car without mounting points? I need to know what reinforcements are necessary and where the belt mounting points should be located. Now we have a baby I find that most of my R4 driving is done alone, as the front belt will not reach around the baby seat. If I can fit inertia reel rear belts I can get around this problem and ensure that he will be able to ride in the car as he gets older. My '68 model is very original (6v, flat wiper blades, bench seat, the lot) but I feel I will have to compromise on this one in order to make my journeys less lonely.

Grateful for any advice.
David

Hi I wondered if you had resolved fitting rear belts.
I'm in Spain and need to fit rear seat belts to my 1976 Renault 4 TL but there is no mounting points any advice please. Thanks