VCCA Home Forums TECHNICAL - 1945 AND NEWER 1946-1948 3 point seat belts

Looking for information about neatly installing shoulder harness front seat belts in a 1947 Stylemaster 2 door sedan. thanks

Nobody here wears even a lap belt?

You might check with some of the street rod vendors for some options.

J.C Whitney Auto,,,Has 3 point belte...Several different colors..They work well in my 54...Bill

Check with these people.
http://www.seatbeltstore.com/

Here is another one I have used a few times.
www.seatbeltplanet.com

you might want to check this out .I know it's the wrong year but it gives you the general idea on how to...
http://www.julianos.com/how2_55chev.html
good luck ,bill

I don't wish to muddy the waters here, but unless you're 100% sure of your fab skills, engineering ability or welding stength... I don't know how strong that shoulder mount will be in the event of an actual crash. I know the intent is well-placed, but adding anything other than a lap-belt is a big job and would look questionable to some, especially if you ever sell the car. It may become an issue down the road to original car folks.

These cars weren't designed with 'crumple zones' and break-away steering columns and that sort of thing. Pillars and seat belt anchor points may not work as we'd like them to if, heaven forbid, you have an accident. I've seen a lot of older cars with modern (or period reproduction) retrofit seat belt systems that amount to a few holes, washers, and grade 8 bolts through small sheetmetal that would simply tear out if they had to hold a full-sized adult. As long as you do things correctly and follow the lead of folks like that article from Julianos, you should be fine. But even still you're adding something to a car that was never designed to have such a feature. Just something to keep in mind. I do wish you the best with the project, though and if you find a good system and go with it please share it.

If I had children I would probably rethink my statements above and I do appreciate the need to have a safe car for folks to enjoy. There are a lot of crazies on the roads today :)

Good luck, and keep us posted if you'd like.

Excellent article on how to install shoulder harness belts, THANKS guys , I'm planning an extended trip in my stock 1947 Stylemaster 2 door sedan and I wouldn't be comfortable without some seat belts, preferably a 3 point.I've had a 235" engine in the past and it was bulletproof but I plan to use the stock 216" engine for my trip but it almost seems not to many people have a good thing to say about the 216s. My 216 engine seems to be in very good shape.Any thoughts whether it will stay together with a lot of highway driving???

The question to the reliability of a 216,,,,,,,,check out the race of JAUN FANGIO in his used borrowered straight axle 41,,,,,,Preprare to be amazed, On Google

Ordered my 3 point seat belts from WESCO, I'm getting a model for a van because of the high mounting point for the shoulder belt. Now that I have a parts car to work with the project should go smoother.

I finally have the 3 point seat belt/shoulder harness installed in my 47 two door sedan. It's a fairly big job to do it properly but I tested them tonight and they are very comfortable to wear.they are a bit of a pain to buckle up but not too bad. The outside anchor points I had to tie in to the frame because the floor (even tho its not rusted)is too weak to anchor seat belts.Now the old lady will go for a drive in the 47,LOL :)

Hi Mel,

It would be nice if you would post some pictures of your installation, and give an explanation of what you did, especially where you placed your anchors. This topic has come up before and you can see what others have done by searching the index of past posts.

I did not see this topic until today so am sorry I didn't respond earlier. I installed lap belts about 7 years ago. I just parted out a 41 and here are two pictures of how they installed their belts.


http://i1321.photobucket.com/albums/u560/41chevymike/IMG_1305_zps7ce9a495.jpg


http://i1321.photobucket.com/albums/u560/41chevymike/IMG_1304_zps8e484c2c.jpg

As you can see this installation would not withstand much of a crash. If the belts didn't fail relying on only the 8 floor bolts holding the seat adjuster to the floor would probably have.

Here is what I did.

Good luck, Mike

Seat belts

I would gladly post some pictures but have not been able to,(not really good at computors) could you please show/explain an easy way to post pictures here? I have no problem doing pics at another club site .....but here it is a problem for me:( thank you

Hi Mel,

You can email me your pictures and I will post them for you. My address is fraub48@yahoo.com.

If you think you would like to post pictures regularly to our web site let me know and I will have you call me at home and I will talk you through the steps.

Here are some of the steps in posting pictures:

1) Take a digital picture that has less than 100 k of memory.

2) Sign up for a web site that will host your pictures. Photobucket is a free site that you can upload pictures to. The site Is http://photobucket.com

3 Upload some pictures to Photobucket and look at them under the heading View Library.

4) Copy and paste the pictures into your Chevy Chat post. The steps to do this require you to click on the picture you want to post then click on the IMG link. Next paste it into your post.

If you feel up for the challenge let me know.
Thanks, Mike

Thanks very much ! , I will give it a try tomorrow and see what I can do.

Test picture :)

Looks like the test worked.