Anyone have experience in retrofitting seat belts? A vendor you prefer or would warn against? Want to be able to take the wee ones out to give them an appreciation for the car (55 sedan).

Thanks

 

I'm retrofitting 4th gen Camaro seatbelts into a 2nd gen Camaro body.
Front's are direct bolt in, but the rears require some welding and details.
Many people have done this and it also gives the rear a 3 point setup instead of just the lap belt.
It's way safer.

Bonzohansen posted the article showing how to retrofit 3 point rears into a classic GM car.
http://www.nastyz28.com/forum/showthread.php?t=170967

I'm not sure how yours mount, but I'd contact an Ebay salvage yard retailer and see what the options are.
For a mint condition front and rear complete set it's $85 from Fparts salvage.

Aftermarket or OER (junk imo) kits will run you 2-3x that plus......
This guy was just advertising on Nastyz28 http://www.morrisclassicconcepts.com...ge%20Three.htm

 

I presume you're talking about putting them in a car that didn't originally have them. That could be a bit of an issue because seat belts are bolted to reinforced areas of the floor. You can't just drill a hole through the floor, put the bolt through, and then put the nut on the other side. The floor itself isn't thick enough to hold as tremendous forces can be put onto a seat belt bolt in a crash.

What you need is some way to spread the force out, and I think the way to do that would be similar to what the manufacturers did. Weld or in some way attach a steel plate under the floor at the point of the attachment, and then drill a hole. Original equipment belts were generally held in place by bolts screwed into tapped holes in the steel plate so there was no need to get under the car and try to hold a nut in place while inserting a bolt from the top. But with two people, you can do this.

I'm sure that seat belts have been successfully retrofitted to cars like yours, and I'm sure the owners of '50s cars on here can tell you what they did.

As far as where to get belts, doing a google search turns up lots of vendors of new, aftermarket seat belts, and they're all going to be perfectly fine. I put some new belts in my '67 Delta 88, and I bought them from this place:

http://www.seatbeltsplus.com/


You can get a set of two-point belts (non-retractable) for less than $20, and they come with the mounting bolts and washers. The ones I purchased look and work fine, I think. You can see them on the front seat in this photo. I didn't get retractors because I'm a cheapskate! I had to get new belts for this car because a previous owner had removed the inboard belts on each side in the front and had cut with a pair of shears the rear belts out completely.

 

I put lap belts in the front of my '56. The procedure would be the same for rear lap belts. The trick is to drill a hole in the floor and reinforce it on both sides. Going back to my race car days, the rulebook said to reinforce the floor with steel plate or minimum half inch washers. You have to use different width material on each side of your floor, otherwise your mount can shear off.
Make sure you check underneath before you drill. If your car is an x frame like mine, the frame can get in the way of where you want to drill.