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Anyone have photos and suggestion for 70-72 style convertible shoulder belts? I want something that ideally bolts to the original points next to the seat on either side and only requires a single mounting point on rear panel. How did you do yours?
You have a few options - each with their own pros and cons. Factory, aftermarket seats with shoulder harness built in, custom setup w/o roll bar, roll bar with belts attached. Which are you interested in? Very few Olds guys I've seen with any of these except factory but you can find Mustangs or Camaros with examples. I have a roll bar with shoulder harnesses built in but most don't want to go that route.
For mine I run a 5 pt harness or racing with the removable cross bar attached: YPwHj6m.jpg
Then for street I run no cross bar and you the shoulder harnesses I got from my wife's Nissan 350 z convertible: hVGL3ue.jpg
I ordered them in black instead of grey from the Nissan dealership since the height of the seats was the exact same measurement. The cars sit beside each other in my garage so I tried to find a way to make it happen: xam7J9L.jpg oRNK6Py.jpg Qt73TJf.jpg VFtZYnE.jpg
Here's my mock up of how I want the interior done by a professional some day: VRhB0mo.jpg NgohN8P.jpg jjSf2dd.jpg AfIbKJw.jpg eDp6iz8.jpg DHURQkK.jpg oaN0dAb.jpg
The belts work fantastic but I haven't had any interior work done yet to make them look "pretty". I know my mock up looks fugly. Here's the look I'm going for: oWe79lN.jpg
In this video you can see the belts pretty good from 2:30 to 2:40 and even better from 4:50 to 5:00
You could probably mock up something similar w/o a full roll bar but you would still need some serious steel support welded in maybe just an extension from where the factory belts bolt and you could hide it similar to what my mock up shows.
I don't have any pics of the aftermarket seats with the belts built in but that's another option for you. I just like the strato buckets so would never want to go that route.
That Light blue interior looks best. I wouldn't mind the factory style but near impossible to find a reasonably priced set. I like how that one hides tge retractor under the Rear armrest.
You can get close to factory style for not that much. Try contacting Steve Pekrul at Seatbeltplanet.com I purchased and have setup the front seat with the shoulders. Haven't finished the rear yet, but did buy it.
Well! Here it is! I went with this style. I Found the perfect spot to mount the top pivot. There is a pretty thick spot in the chassis that has some reinforcement behind it and room for the pivot Bolt To penetrate without hitting. Then down below the retractor is mounted on floor in a way that allows it to unspool without hitting. The belt then fits perfectly between armrest and passenger rear quarter panel cover without binding thanks to the considerable gap.
As an engineer, I remain skeptical of any installation that doesn't use the factory hard points. There's a reason why Olds went through the trouble to run the belts all the way back to that bracket by the top cylinder - it's the structural hard point. Attaching to the to of the inner quarter as shown in some of these photos is scary - that's just unsupported sheet metal. Like TSA, it gives the APPEARANCE of security. I also guarantee that none of these aftermarket inertia reel systems have had any crash testing to validate that they actually work. Make an informed decision.
Here are some photos of the point I mounted at. I used steel pop rivets instead of aluminum. The spot I mounted is thicker than the pan and double layer welded for strength. Similar to the point the convertible frame mounts to. If I knew how to weld I could also tac weld around perimeter of the plate.
