Fitting Rear Seat Belt Anchor Points

Previously I've fitted seat belt points for all but the rear seat shoulder points, this has always been a tough place to try and fit a mount as there is only the outer skin to attach to. I don't fancy welding a seat belt attachment plate to the out side of my van.

 

There are a few ways this has been done before, and there is a thread on the SSVC (splitscreen van club) forum where members have shared there designs and thoughts.

 

Here are a few of them. and the threads

Fitting seat belts in a splitscreen bus

Rear seat belt anchor points

Rear seat belt fitting





Here is what I've done. Using the existing curve of the I cut a cardboard template of the pillar just forward of where I want to position my mount. I then cut a block of hard wood down the middle matching the curve of the template.

 

Calculating the width and height I cut a sheet of 1mm thick steel a clamped it along its centre between the curved blocks.

Using some heat along the bend I folded the first lip with a large mallet and block that had smooth edges so that it would not mark the metal to much.

With the first lip bent I simply flipped the block in the vice to bend over the second lip.

I then drew a parallel line of 35mm (-1mm for skin thickness) along the side to give me the thickness of the support. Keeping the folded sheet on the concave block I then used the convex curved block clamped on the side to let me bend the foot of the support back over the block, this was helped with some more heat.



With all four folds bent I trialled the support on the van and hammered out any high or low spots with a block and hammer

The top of the support was cut at an angle to fit in the top gutter and the bottom was profiled to fit the lip of the side wall at the bottom, the

The Height of the mount point was taken from a similar height as the front, the two remaining plates I had were trimmed to sit inside the section

The plates were held in with bolts to make sure they were in the center of the holes and welded into position.

To finalise the position to weld the support I dug out and fitted the old interior. This worked out about 21cm from the support back from the rear side window.

 

 

Before I welded the support in place I decided to make two more attachment points to weld to the bottom of the support as I'm sure of the design of the interior and where the seat belt real will be positioned. 

With all the paint from the contact surfaces removed and the inside of the support painted I clamped the bracket into position, I used threaded bar braced from the opposite side of the van to hold the support where the clamps would not reach.

With the spacing marked out I spot welded the brace onto the inner skin, (could not take a photo as the welder is so heavy) then welded around the top and bottom, there were a couple of holes that burnt a dimple in the skin, so Mig welded these.

 

Fitting Seat Belt Anchor Points

One of the many smaller jobs listed on the TO DO sheet once the van was back together was working out how to fit seat belts. There is a good thread on the SSVC forum about bus safety that I keep an eye on and this is where I've got most of my ideas from on how to fit seat belt mounting points to my van 

I picked this lot up from EuropaSpares.com - £1 for the plates and £1.29 for the bolts, a fair price considering the price some VW websites charge.

I started at the back, positioned the plate, marked it out then realised I need to fit my interior panels here somewhere as well.

So draging out my 1990 velour covered interior panel I started again

Here's the hole position from the inside. There will be one each side.

And where it is positioned from inside the wheel arch

I put a slight bend on the edge of the plates to fit the curve of the wheel arch

I had to drag out another 1990's relic- a piece of 1"x2" pine I used to repair the rear seat support long ago so I could get a fix on the best position for the two centre positions (making 4 points for 3 peoples belts).

Positioning the hole a holes' pitch up from the top of the rear seat should allow enough room for the belt mounts to sit behind the cushions. I hope I'll be able to piggy back two mounts to one hole, if not I'll have to fit another plate next to each other.

I'll still need to work out the shoulder mounts for the back seats.

Fitting front mounts is a lot harder than the back, the original seat belts at the front bench seat (apart from the middle lap belt) came over your shoulder and down your back on to a two bolted bracket on the top of the bulkhead, these non retractable belts would slide off your shoulder and weren't worth wearing.

So triming down two of the plates to the thickness of the box section of the B post. I sat in the front of the van with springs digging up my arse and judged the best place for the top hole (is what I'm telling my fiance).

My original intention was to slide the plate up the box section from the outer part of the B pillar sill I needed to repair, but when I slid some wire down the top hole it came out of a big square hole in my new wheel arch, realy not sure why thats there? Eager to see if the hole was wide enough I slid the plate in and then dropped it. Then spent 1/2 an hour trying to dig it out again.

With two weld holes and a bolt hole drilled in the pillar I attached one piece of wire to the top of the plate and one to the bottom so I could pull it from both directions.

Then a lot of gentle then frustrated then gentle tugging, then taking the cargo door bolts out then more tugging. finaly after an hour I got the plate to the hole only to realise I could not hold it in place using the bolt because I had put the wire through the threaded hole in the plate.

I needed a break and had a suger fix, came back with the idea to use a magnet to hold the plate in position while I cut the wire and fitted the bolt, the wire was a bit of a pain to cut in a small hole but I managed it in the end.

I held the plate in place with the bolt and washers and welded the plate through the two holes, I remembered to grind away the galvenising on the plate before I installed it so that I got a good weld. A touch of oxide paint and I have one front sholder belt fitting finished. I'll tell you all the story of my mum bad brakes and the windscreen one day too...

To fit the right hand side I stared by finding the best place to cut a hole big enough for the mount plate to fit. Decided on the back face of the B pillar half way down in a position that would be hidden by the side panels.

I should of cut the hole a little higher or lower because of the cab door strike plate attachment nut plate on the forward face of the pillar got in the way.

I trimmed the sides of the plate so it would fit better inside the pillar, attached a piece of wire top and bottom to help me guide it up the inside,

Pulling the wire up through the top hole I drilled earlier. I then fiddled to get the plate flat and held in place with a magnet so I could fit the bolt to hold the platefirm for welding.

The plate was cleaned of galvanised plating where the weld hole were, then mig welded and once ground down flat the anchor point is installed. easy..........

Still not sure what to do about the hole in the bottom of the pillar yet though