seat belts?

Skip20's suggestion is probably the most economical, but you can but three point aftermarket ones with retractors for about $70 each, less than $30 each without retractors. The tough thing is finding a place to mount the shoulder strap, if you do not have a roll bar to connect it to.
Warmest...

Here's how I hung mine:

If you must install seatbelts I suggest you use 2 point quick release belts mounted into solid steel with large thick backing plates. The tunnel is a great place for one point but unless you have a full cage design and heavy duty floor pan, where do you mount the other points.

I used 5 points quick release racing harnesses on my GT2. Not to be safer but due to the fact that you lay down in the car [and they look good].



The crotch strap keeps you from sliding under the dash on hard braking. Do I trust them to reduce injury? Not by a longshot. I never wear the shoulder straps as they form compression forces on your spine due to the fact that they are mounted through the seat and down to the floor. My floor is 1/8 plate steel. The perimeter is 1" thick wall square steel. Also keep in mind that shoulder strap mounting points must be a a certain hieght.



There are tremendous forces at work in a collision. A setup like that shown above will in all likelihood be more harmful than good. That "roll bar will snap like a pretzel and beat the users in the back of the head. And the retractor unit will shread the side of the car as it heads forward. These cars are no safer than a motorcycle when in a crash. Time can save your life especially when dealing with cheap gull wing doors and a roof over your head.

Have a look here for forces involved.

hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/carcr.html

You can enter your own values in the calculator.

I tried 200lb driver for weight of car as the driver is going the same speed. 30mph speed with 4 foot stopping distance {head on collision}. Results show you put about .8 tons of force on the belts in the blink of an eye. At 40mph=1.3 tons, 50=2 tons. 60=3 tons Do you think that the Bradley structure can handle that?



Here is from a post I made on the samba.

From a previous post I made re child seats.
In Ontario we have a law re child booster seats. 8 years, 80 lbs, 4'5" or something to that effect. As I have 5 grand kids and 2 were living with me I had issues with the law as it is written. I was driving my 76 Vw transporter at the time. Problem is booster seats require a shoulder strap. We are not engineers and cannot determine if a self designed harness would save or kill the person wearing it. The govt said I was to put one child in the front with a booster and shoulder strap. The other in the rear with just a lap belt. When i explained that a bus is a forward control vehicle and the only thing between the front seat and the rest of the world was 1/32" of body metal and 1/4" of styrofoam they said both kids in the back, no booster seat, using the lap belts.
Then I asked them what about my Chevy ext cab with first generation air bags. Booster cannot go on front pass as the airbag could not be turned off. Front center has no shoulder strap. Rear has just lap belts. Their solution was in the rear with just lap belts. There are a lot of "normal" vehicles on the road that a booster seat cannot be used in. The law makers lacked common sense and grouped all vehicles together. A buggy , even with the typical roll cage (usually not well thought out and fully welded to the chassis) offers very little protection. Belting a child in the front seat is the best option as long as the belts AND the seat are secured properly. A little common sense goes a long way. I have been first on scene at some pretty bad accidents where the driver was thrown out the windows . Had they been belted in they would be dead.



Most of these cars were built on chassis manufactured prior to 1989 {manditory rear seat belts installed by manufacturers} Front belts did not come in until 1972. The law states that as we are not engineers, we are not required to install belts of any kind into any car that did not originally come with them. Would adding them actusally help them or cause a fatality?

My view on belts may start a war but they say 30% of fatalities were not wearing their belts. This means 70% were belted in. Do they save lives? Yes, in the right circumstances. There is a thread here of a buggy that was hit from the rear. Totally destroying the buggy. The driver was lucky he had no belts.
www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=263414&highlight=hilux








Will you have time to unbuckle everyone in an emergency to get them out? When I drove bikes, my kids were not allowed on them until they were 10 years old. No buggy rides until they were out of car seats. My advice is to do what you think is best but more importantly drive like everyone is aiming to hit you.


Personally I would rather take the risk and drive accordingly when operating a vehichle that did not have seatbelts, instead of finding out that my self designed restaints were the cause of someone getting killed. The stats are in my favor.

I have 5 point harnesses in mine.