Seatbelts

[DesertSprite]

Okay...the '65 Sprite I bought has the eyebolts down behind the seats where you can supposedly anchor seatbelts of some sort. Can I pretty much mount any of those seatbelts they advertise in the Moss catalog, like the "classic" style lap belt?

However, the car does have a rollbar installed as well. Could I possibly mount some sort of 4-point harness? Are there harnesses out there where you can use the 'across the lap' portion when you want, and then use the shoulder portion when you want to do some harder driving? What have you guys used in your cars?

Right now the car has NO seatbelts and needless to say that means the Wife is anti-Sprite driving right now.

Mahalos.

/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/patriot.gif

Joel

 

[ChrisS]

I have a 5 point RCI cam-lock style harness on the driver’s side of my ’73 for autocross. The car also has a roll bar. I mounted the lap belt portion to the factory locations, and the shoulder belts to the roll bar. To be honest, I usually just use the lap belt we driving around town. This is not recommended and can cause additional injuries in a crash. The reason being is that when all the belts are used together the cam lock is up on my pelvis area which can withstand a lot more force (5000#) than the abdominal area (800#). Take a look at https://www.gforce.com/pdf/harnessinstall.pdf

Another consideration is the seat. Attached is a picture from https://www.soloracer.com/harnschrothfaq.html , and the following excerpt:

“Seat-back/head rest construction is the most critical factor in the seat construction. The head rest must be constructed to both allow the belts to pass through and to help keep the belts from going side to side. A fully integrated headrest is not acceptable. The problem with the fully integrated headrest (far right), is that the belts can slide down the sides of the seat, and usually results in the driver sliding out of the shoulder straps under impact. A seat with no headrest, as pictured 2nd from the right, has no means of retaining the shoulder straps in the case of any sideways movement, and is also unacceptable.“

If you have factory seats without a head rest there may be an issue. You need to make your own determination on safety for obvious reasons. I’m sure a few of the race folks will give their input as well.

Also a general circle track tech article:
https://www.circletrack.com/techarticles/76778/

 

[DesertSprite]

Thanks Chris. I do have factory seats without headrests. Perhaps for now I will just go with a lap belt until I can figure out (and afford) something else.

Joel

 

[spritenut]

Those eye bolts *should* unscrew if they didn't rust in place.
Any lap belt will bolt right in the same hole but you will need to scrounge up some bolts. I think the thread is 7/16 fine. If there is any non metric junker available, grab the seatbelt bolts.
Also late 80s VW Jetta shoulder belts will bolt up and work just fine on later Spridgets. You just have to remove the verticle tilt ball. Not the lock but they have a ball that keeps them from being mounted horizonally.