How I installed 4th gen vert seat belts in my 69 vert - Part 1 of 3

Well, I think I have finished my quest for front and rear retractable seat belts in my 69 convertible. I will post some pictures and give a little "how I did it", with the usual disclaimers that if you do it this way and get hurt, it's not my fault. I am also open to constructive criticism, so fire away. Many thanks to KevinW, who talked me off the ledge and got me motivated to finish this little project. Thanks also to a gentleman, Ken_in_MD, who's a Mustang guy but happened to be browsing here and emailed me some info on his 69 Mustang setup and other useful info.

Other useful info, such as mounting point angles to comply with current Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards, can be found in FMVSS 208-210. Here's a link to 210; this style belt are Type 2 (lap and shoulder as one).

http://ecfr.gpoaccess.gov/cgi/t/tex...833820c78ab4cabfe5f084d790&rgn=div8&view=text&node=49:6.1.2.3.37.2.7.46&idno=49

I started with a set of 4th gen convertible seat belts I bought off ebay from a theft recovery car. In theory, you cannot use belts from a wrecked car, because if the wreck was hard enough and someone was wearing the seat belt, the belt can be junk.

My belts came complete with the rear mounting bracket (front mounting point is part of the 4th gen's body structure. Here's the rear setup as it came:



Now, the first thing I realized (after Kevin re-motivated me) was that the retractor needed to be oriented the same way as in the 4th gen to work correctly. With that in mind, I mocked up a couple locations, and found that mounting the retractor in one of the existing stamped holes in the rear seat brace reinforcement would work. Because the reinforcement seemed a little thin, and because I wanted to make sure the retractor was at an angle it would work and the mounting bolt wouldn't get stressed in other planes, I fabbed a little load spreader. Here's how it all looks mounted in the car.





I ended up mounting the D-ring on the rear seat back brace. I still have to coat the bottom of the D-ring with a plastic coating so the belt won't wear.



The 4th gen rear buckles bolt right in; they are a little short, so they're hard to grab, but I think they'll be okay.





Position where the belt comes over the shoulder looks okay too.

Re: How I installed 4th gen vert seat belts in my 69 vert

Then came the front belts. Here's close up shots of two different front retractors I found from a 4th gen vert. The gray belt is from the complete set I bought, exact model year unknown. The black one is from a 99. If the belts changed at the same time the overall makeover happened, my gray ones are from a 93-97, and the blacks would be 98-02. Note the difference in size, absence of the plastic belt guide on the black, and that the black feeds out the opposite side of the gray. I chose to stick with the gray belts, because the way I wanted to mount them meant that the black belt would be feeding up very close to the side panel and might rub.







I mocked up a couple locations, and finally settled on mounting them "sideways" (compared to how they mount in the 4th gen) above the dogbones. They are slightly higher than the tops of a factory 1st gen armrest, but this was the only place I could fit them that they worked and the manual top springs would not hit them at any point in putting the top up and down. Power top cylinders may have different arc movements so maybe they can be mounted lower in a power top car.

Once I mocked them up and marked where on the car they would be, I made a rough template of the mounting bracket I'd need, and just kept refining the template until it was really close. Once it was close, I moved to 14 gage sheet metal. I finally ended up with brackets that looked like this. The bar stock "wings" were add to give additional mounting surface; if the piece of 14 gage I had would have been big enough, I'd skip the bar stock and make it all one piece; I'm sure a pro fabricator could do much better with a bracket for this.





I welded more reinforcement and the nuts on the back side.



Then the brackets got welded into the car. They are welded to the interior side of the quarter at the top and down the middle, and more importantly (I think) to brace at the front and the top of the inner rocker at the bottom.

Re: How I installed 4th gen vert seat belts in my 69 vert

I bolted the retractor to the bracket, and then moved on to making the D-ring mount. I ended up cutting the tops off the 4th gen rear seat belt mounts and using them as my nut and underside reinforcement; Wesco Performance sells moutning plates that can be used the same way, and they'd have SAE threads instead of metric, but I like to use what I've got if I can.



D-ring mount from underneath.



From up top (note the extra holes; I goofed and had the D-ring farther forward than I should the first time. Not a big deal, I used the "middle" hole as a plug weld point for the plates)



I also made an angled spacer to improve the angle of the D-ring.

After fabricating my own arm rest panels, adding trim/guide plates from a 4th gen coupe, and D-ring covers from an S-Blazer/Pickup, here's how it ended up looking.









I think the angle at which it comes over the shoulder is fine (man I don't look happy...), as is the lap angle.

Re: How I installed 4th gen vert seat belts in my 69 vert - Part 1 of 3

Details details..... at least I can stay in the car now.

I forgot to mention that if you try to adopt modern retractable belts, make sure you get the kind with an inertial lock based on the speed with which the belt is pulled, rather than a style with a pendulum/weight. The latter are more sensitive to needing mounted exactly in the same position they were designed to be mounted.

The inertials on three of the belts function as original; my wife is too scared to ride in a car with so much exposed metal and noise . The kids took their first ride in October, and they enjoyed several 30-0 short stops in our driveway, almost much as they enjoyed the clutch sidestep and burning rubber between stops.

Kevin, can you see your door patches in any of these photos?

Re: How I installed 4th gen vert seat belts in my 69 vert - Part 1 of 3

Very nice! Great write-up! This is on my list

Re: How I installed 4th gen vert seat belts in my 69 vert - Part 1 of 3

Very cool Eric!! There is something about you rear seat, seat back that I can't quite grasp. It looks too tall or like it's not down all the way. The top of the seat back should be closer to the top of the seat back support or something. Maybe it's just the pictures making it look different.

I'm sure you have ideas how you will do the top well liner, is the top going to fold without the rear belt guide brackets interfearing? Might require a custom touch on the top boot as well.

I think what you have done is very custom yet will end up looking as if the factory designed it. That's the cool stuff I really like. :thumbsup:

Re: How I installed 4th gen vert seat belts in my 69 vert - Part 1 of 3

Hey Eric -very cool, nice job and real nice forward thinking in getting that completed. Thanks for sharing the process and the pics ... but I think I could have lived without that crotch shot in the last picture Just kidding ... nice work!

Re: How I installed 4th gen vert seat belts in my 69 vert - Part 1 of 3

Grind schmind... that's what door panels are for. the ugliness you see is mostly seam sealer anyway; I figured spending 40 hours per door trying to butt-weld and fill for a factory look was time wasted. At least the windows crank up without the regulator mount moving 2 inches toward my leg.

Dennis, I think the seat back looks weird because I probably didn't have it completely pushed down, and because the upholstery is almost completely falling off and rides up when the seat is pushed down. It looks better than that, but apparently I didn't take a "final" picture from that angle. The rear D-ring mounts may still take a little work, because they are pretty close to the center bow when the frame is folded, and it's possible that when a top is on the frame, there might be some interference. It's close enough I can make it work. The belts fit the kids nice when they are in their boosters, and they are in securely and give me a lot more peace of mind than just laps would.

Kevin and I have discussed how the well liner may need a grommet, but I am looking at ways around that. I haven't had a boot for either of my verts, so when I get that far I'll figure out how to deal with it. Probably just make a pass through flap that secures with Velcro. My buddy with the paint shop also does high end custom street rod interiors, so I will figure something out that looks clean.

The rear window crank will operate, swing is behind the belt. With the money I saved not buying restored or repro 1st gen lap and shoulder belts, I can go power windows if I want. Won't need switches for the quarters, because I don't like the way the kids play with the windows in our other cars.

The D-ring mount for the front belts being up where it is won't be for everyone, but it seems like a good way to try to meet the FMVSS, and it's darn comfortable. I played around with putting the D-ring mount on the seat back, similar to the way I did the rears, but it looked bad, wasn't as comfortable, and probably wasn't as safe. When I had the D-ring farther toward the front of the car (the oops holes above), the belt wanted to slip down my shoulder. Moving it back directly above the retractor looks better and gets it a little higher because the sheetmetal curves up, and putting an angled spacer under it brings it level and makes it fit me (6'-1") just right. I'll be a little higher when I redo the seats and get the carpet and sound deadener in, but I think it'll be fine.

The mounting geometry is basically the same as the kits that Wesco Performance sells for convertible applications, but theirs would have a big retractor bolted to the existing lower anchor point, and I thought it would look weird and be a real hinder to back seat access. On mine, the outside end just rotates down to the rear, parallel to and level with the rocker, so you can just step right in.

I also need to fool around with the plastic sheaths on the front buckle, because they bolt to the floor in a 4th gen, so it looks a little weird on the tunnel. If it doesn't come to a better position just being bolted up for awhile, I'll probably just notch/section the plastic until it lays flat.

As far as donor cars for belts go, someone may want to look closer at the retractors in the S Blazers and Pickups. When I was getting the D-ring covers (found walking around in the local boneyard, 4th gen belt in hand; I paid $3 for four D-ring covers and the two coupe guide plates, when the D-ring covers alone are $23 each from GM....), I looked at the belts setups in those trucks and they looked like they could work.

For now, the 4th gen vert belts are still available through GM, for less than $200 for all 4 retractors. I forget what the buckles cost. I also don't know if what I presume are the earlier (93-97) style are available, or if they are all the later style like my black ones. Since GMPartsDirect changed their website around, it doesn't show part numbers in the lookup.

Looking into it more, it looks like GM vert front belt applications are 94, 95-96, 97, 98-99, and 00-02. I have no idea if the five are different, or just different colors. New from GM, the retractors are around $50 each jobber, and most of the buckles are $50 each (the 97 buckles are shown as $155 each, some specal 30th anniversary deal??? or just low stock).

GM vert rear belt applications only have four breakouts, 94-96, 97, 98-99, and 00-02. Same deal as the fronts, the retractors are in the $50 range, and the majority of the buckles are $50 each (I think the 97s were $120).

I confirmed the availability of ebony (black) 00-02 rear retractors, because I thought I might use black. Don't know actual availability of other years/positions/colors. I think I may stick with the graphite colored belts, because they match the exterior color and I think they look okay. Besides, they are in....

I got my full set of vert belts on ebay for $125, including the big rear mounting brackets. The black fronts I got for $9.99 on ebay.

There was no irreversible mods to the original 69 sheetmetal, just some welding and drilling.

I wanted to wait to post all this until I got the rear trim panels bought and installed, but I'm not sure when that is going to happen.

Thanks for the kind words guys! It's a little scary how well they worked out. It took a lot of time, more thinking and planning than actual fab/install, but it's a good feeling to go down the road feeling as secure as if I was in my Silverado.

Next step, retro fit one of those inertial rollover bars like the Benz verts. No, no, just kidding. I think...

Re: How I installed 4th gen vert seat belts in my 69 vert - Part 1 of 3

no69x-44 said:

Hey Eric -very cool, nice job and real nice forward thinking in getting that completed. Thanks for sharing the process and the pics ... but I think I could have lived without that crotch shot in the last picture Just kidding ... nice work!

Click to expand...

Check out the next to last shot in Post #1; even got a little thigh in that shot. I really wish I had a dummy besides myself.... I didn't even think of asking my wife.