Wesco performance seat belts i bought

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moparmat2000

moparmat2000

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I bought a nice set of wesco performance seatbelts for my 67 cuda notch. I plan on adding shoulder belts with inertia reel. I ordered them with the chrome lift latch buckle similar to what the stock 67 lap belts would have had. My price shipped for 2 shoulder belts, and 2 rear seat lap belts was $213. I thought it was a pretty good deal. I still have to make and install anchor points in the roof for the shoulder belt, and in the floor or rocker panels for the inertia reels. I have made a template off my 69 notch as to where the shoulder belt mount point is supposed to be, and will put those in the same spot. I figured i'd put this thread up there for those of you wanting to modernize your 67 down A body cars, or even your 68 up A body cars. I will be adding pix to this as i mod the car body to install my anchor points, and mock up these belts for my project. I hope this will help others who are thinking of doing this.

Heres pix
Matt

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Thanks. I sure picked your brain a lot before ordering these, howevrr i am confident i made the right choice. BTW what did you use to cover up the ends that were mounted in the floor, or did you leave the bolts exposed?
I am looking at either repop C body or B body rubber belt end covers for where the belts are mounted in the floor on either side of the seat. The plastic scabbard that the buckle end is supposed to be in will just scratch the heck out of my seats side panels, so like you, i dont plan on using those.

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Shoulder belts do not belong in a vehicle that does not have safety latches on the seat backs. The weight of a free seat back will go forward with you against that restraint. If crash test dummies could talk...
 
Way ahead of you. I have a set of 68 bucket seat latches and pins, and planned on modifying my 67 seat frames for this prior to recovering them.
 
I put a set of those in my 73 Cuda. Bolted right in place. Much nicer than the originals, but I would like to have a little more tension in the retractor.
 
gzig5 said:
I put a set of those in my 73 Cuda. Bolted right in place. Much nicer than the originals, but I would like to have a little more tension in the retractor.
Click to expand...
As long as the retractor locks under fast decelleration its all good.
 
Here is the template i made off the 1969 notchback i also have, and compared it to the 67 notchback i will mod for shoulder belts. As you can see, the upper mount point on the 69 is very close to the location of the coat hook hole used on the 67. So close in fact, that i will just enlarge that hole and use it as the mounting location. I need to make shoulder belt anchoring nut plates as well, and show them here.

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I found this old seatbelt thread and was looking for some follow up information. Matt, could you expand on this and just update the thread. I also have a 67 notchback and though I’m currently elbow deep with engine stuff installing shoulder belts is my next project. Thanks for your help, Jeremy
 
Got oil changes to do on both cars today, but after that i will work on making up mounting points for the belts.
 
Jeremy, thank you for PMing me. Its gotten me off my dead *** to get further on this. Its hard to believe this thread is almost 2 years old and i dropped it. Now i intend to finish it for several reasons including getting everything modded for my 67.

I am currently making floor loops for the second outboard floor anchor point for the belts. I had a piece of 2.5" square tubing thats 3/16" thick. I think that will be plenty stout for these. Not sure if i want to drill and tap these 7/16-20 thread for mopar seat belt bolts, or through drill them on a press at work and tack weld 7/16-20 threaded square nuts on the back.

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Now i have to make 3 more of these exactly the same as the first one. All easy common measurements. Should be a snap.
 
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Here is where i am anchoring the fwd mount. There are handy outboard aft seat mount brackets already welded in under the floor.. I will make some nice square reinforcements to fit inside these underneath. With doubled and tripled steel sandwich it should be fine.

Last pics are belt mockup in the car. The retractor is attached to the original lap belt mounting point, i used a small screw and washer in the coat hook hole to temporarily pin up the sash in the roof area, and the 3rd mount that i am fabricating, is temporarily taped into place with speed tape for the pic. The retractor mechanism works smoothly on an angle like this but if the belt is jerked it does lock, so its probably ok if its slightly angled IMHO.

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A lot of work, but almost done with fwd belt floor anchors. Will prime and paint gloss black when done. Second set is for my sons 69. Thankfully i wont have to mod the roof area for shoulder belts on his lol.

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Thanks, Matt. This is awesome. I look forward to doing this in my car. Please keep any more updates coming.
 
Going to hit up Lowes today for some grade 8 hardware after work. Will go with same size as seatbelt bolts 7/16"
 
Looking at doing my 69 this way. How big are the seat belt retracts? I measured about 2.5" from the mounting point on the frame to the seat for clearance with carpet installed. I like your brackets and location, captures the frame and is more forward to go over your lap.
 
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I will measure retractors later tonight. Theres a company using the same, retractors for a custom fit setup for a body Mopar but the problem with theirs is they do not have an 8 in Upper sash with d-ring this forces the belt to cut into your neck so being they're using the same retractors in the same spot they must fit
 
Well a second measure of my car came up with 3". That is measuring perpendicular to the existing mounting plane to the seat.
 
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