therobski

See the dimples pictured with the gray tape in order to drill the holes for rear seat belt placement? In this instance, the shop manual is not very helpful. I want to measure 3 times and drill once as they say. I believe the anchors are under the carpet for the front. Does anybody know if this is correct where I have them placed? Thanks.

Yellowstatue

Perhaps there might be a dealer bulletin for installation for that era of car.

rocketraider

Look UNDER the car and see if there are weld nuts already in place for rear belts. If they're there and you can access them, drill thru from the bottom side. If not, drill a small pilot hole at the dimple before drilling the anchor bolt hole.

Use a large diameter THICK flat washer on both top and bottom of the floorpans to keep the anchor bolts from pulling thru. Improperly anchored belts are worse than no belt at all.

This is a job where caution is important as you don't want to drill into a brake line.

rocketraider

Just a thought- look in ACCESSORIES section of the shop book and see if it says anything about installing rear seat belts.

therobski

Thanks Rocketraider Ill look up the shop manual later today..Ya never know right?

Charlie Jones

The front has nuts and backing plates already installed . 7/16 fine thread , I believe .
There are dimples in the sheetmetal in the back . Where it is suggested that the holes be drilled .
You will need " large fender washers " there for backing plates .

I'm going to the shop tomorrow , and I will post some pics tomorrow evening of the locations .

therobski

Thanks Charlie!!!

Charlie Jones

OK , here are pics as promised ;

The front mountings are circled in red ;





There are six " dimples " under the rear seat . The red ones are for the outer seat belts .
The blue ones are for a center belt .





Here are some photos from the bottom . I don't think you will have any clearance problems .













And last is a shot of one of the front backup plates from the bottom .

redoldsman

Big help Charlie. Rob and I will both appreciate that since I am his helper.

Charlie Jones

Rob is lucky to have a " Phantom Phixer " for a helper .
If you can fix a Phantom , you can fix anything .

redoldsman

Thanks Charlie. Rob and I haven't known each other very long but we are having a good time fixing odds and ends on this Starfire. Our biggest challenge has been the rear power windows.

therobski

Yes indeed thanks to both of you for help and kind words. Yes, replacing the rear power window motors was a challenge but we gotter done. The 58 year old shop manual was not much help with power windows only manual.Same with the rear seat belt option. Very fortunately the rear floor area as well with the rest of this car has very, very little surface rust ( zero rot) -makes it a lot easier. I have worked on and restored a few rust buckets, this is a nice example to try and keep it as original as possible. So thanks again for taking your time.