Thread: Retractable seat belts in a soft top

OK, so not much action on this. For anyone interested I've been working with the engineer here in Victoria to sort out a solution and he's going to model the forces involved based on using a seat belt bar the same as the Exmoor Trim one (in pic). I'll post back with the results and once we have an approved design I'll share it for anyone else in the same situation.

The bar will need to be padded to reduce the head strike risk. I looked at mounting the bar much lower, in line with the seat tops, but once I sat in the car that was going to be too low and put downwards pressure on the shoulder from the seatbelt.

I'll be mounting the retracting reels on the bulkhead using the Series 3 type bracket.

Cheers,

Adamext500-1_ex1_web.jpg

Hi Adam.
Is the engineer worried about head strike to the side hoops or the horizontal bar between the hoops? If the latter, could the horizontal bar be deleted and replaced with a simple diagonal brace down onto the transom?

I would like to take the roof off my Stage 1 109 for summer and have been grappling with how to deal with the upper seat belt mount also.

Chris

'Home made' one here Seat belt mounts - Series Forum - LR4x4 - The Land Rover Forum

This would need 'engineering' but removes the need for the highback seats.

Colin

Originally Posted by gromit

'Home made' one here Seat belt mounts - Series Forum - LR4x4 - The Land Rover Forum

This would need 'engineering' but removes the need for the highback seats.

Colin

I actually ran those pics past the engineer after his concerns over head strike. He was happier with this design but when I modelled it in the car the belt upper mounting point is far too low - there would be constant downward pressure from the belt onto occupant shoulders, plus huge spinal compression in an accident. I went back to a modified version of the Exmoor bar, slightly lower than theirs but still just above shoulder height. The engineer is happy to have the bar wrapped with 25mm eva foam (300kg/m3 density) so that's what we're planning for at the moment. He has my drawings now, waiting on his computer modelling results for impact forces etc...

Cheers,

Adam

Originally Posted by cjc_td5

Hi Adam.
Is the engineer worried about head strike to the side hoops or the horizontal bar between the hoops? If the latter, could the horizontal bar be deleted and replaced with a simple diagonal brace down onto the transom?

I would like to take the roof off my Stage 1 109 for summer and have been grappling with how to deal with the upper seat belt mount also.

Chris

Hi Chris,

from the crossbar. I did look at bracing it back to the transom as a way of reducing this, but I think the full crossbar is probably a more sound structure so we're planning for that, with wrapping of the crossbar in eva foam (as mentioned in previous post).

Keep watching this space, we'll solve this and others can use the design if they want.

Cheers,

Adam

Hey Adam,

Do you know where to buy new lap sash or retractable seat belts for Series landy's in Aus? I'm based in Adelaide and most of the large commercial motor trimmers are asking pretty high prices for seat belt's. I'm also pretty hesitant to buy them off Paddock's or Craddock's for potential compliance issues.

Any help would be appreciated.

Cheers,

Nick