What a difference an inch makes.

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It is a totally false argument. The fact that his first statement is true doesn’t mean the whole argument is. It’s a simple logic problem- if “a”, then “b”.

So, modern cars are safer than our old muscle cars. That’s true. That’s “a”. So then the rest of the argument. If modern cars are safer than our old muscle cars, then “b” -paying attention to safety features on our old muscle cars is like “we are straining out the gnats and swallowing the camels on this one”.

But “b” is false, and it doesn’t follow from “a”. We can still make our old cars more unsafe. We can also make them safer.

So no, just because modern cars are safer doesn’t mean we shouldn’t care about making them even less safe. So the argument is false, even though his first statement is true. Simple logic bud.
I went to bed last night and this was the last thing that I read or attempted to read...
It was B was similar to A but A couldn't compete with B.... Zonk.... Then I woke up this morning...:thumbsup: :thankyou:....
 
Wow, 50% right. That is better than I usually do. Especially when my wife is involved.

I enjoy a spirited discussion (and working from home I am pretty bored staring at a computer all day), so let’s throw some numbers in to this rather than discussing vague generalities.

The two primary concerns I read from this were:

1. Moving the seat up on spacers is unsafe.
2. The wood spacers are unsafe and should be replaced with metal.

Thinking about a worst case scenario where a lot of force is applied to seat mounting (when seat belts are not fastened to seat), that would seem to me to be a rear end collision. This would have the force of your body pushing back on the seat, potentially ripping the front bolts out of the floor. In this case, there is no loading on the front spacers, and a lot of load on the rear
On the wood spacer issue:
When my wife is involved it's probably less than 1%.:BangHead:

For worst case, let’s pick a crappy wood, pine. Pine has a compression strength of about 5000 psi. Let’s assume 2 square inches of contact area for a total of 10,000 lbs per spacer.

Seats use a 1/4-20 bolt as I recall. Tensile strength of a grade 2 bolt is 2350 lbs (grade 5 is 3800). Tensile strength and compression strength are two different things, but this gives you a rough comparison of what forces different things can withstand. From this I would suggest that the wood spacers may not be as bad as we might think.

On the raising the seat an inch issue:

Raising the seat an inch would provide more force on the mounting bolts like having a longer wrench on a bolt. On my car the top of the seat is about 27 inches from the floor. For simplicity and worst case, let’s assume I weigh 250 lbs and all of that weight is applied to the top of the seat. That would be a torque of 2.25 feet (27 inches) times 250 lbs for 562 ft lbs on the mounting system. If you add an inch, that makes the force 583 ft lbs. About a 4% change. Base in this I would conclude that the 1 inch spacer doesn’t make a lot of difference. if want to break loose a stuck bolt, you don’t get a wrench that is an inch longer. Doesn’t really matter

The reduction in the track surface area contact with the floor may be a bigger issue with round spacers. It would likely be better to have a long spacer that supported the entire track from front to back, rather than round spacers made of anything.

How about an example crash scenario? I will arbitrarily pick a 10g crash. This means the 583 ft lbs would now be about 5,830.

For two grade to bolts on the front of the seat seeing about half the the force each: about 2900 lbs on a 2300 lbs bolt. So if everything else held up the grade 2 bolts would shear. Given the sheet metal floor, this seems unlikely, but that is speculation, as the strength of the floor depends on many factors and would be hard to calculate.

This is a very crude analysis and has all kinds of unmentioned assumptions and approximations. May have slight errors or wild glaring mistakes. My point from this is that whether we are doing something useful or not depends on the actual numbers. It is easy to spend a lot of time and effort on things that don’t really matter. Is it a gnat or a camel? Hard to tell sometimes.

Changing anything from the factory design that is safety related should be considered carefully. Unintended consequences are very common.

Well, I suppose I have wasted enough time on this.....time to get back to work.
 
Wow, 50% right. That is better than I usually do. Especially when my wife is involved.

I enjoy a spirited discussion (and working from home I am pretty bored staring at a computer all day), so let’s throw some numbers in to this rather than discussing vague generalities.

The two primary concerns I read from this were:

1. Moving the seat up on spacers is unsafe.
2. The wood spacers are unsafe and should be replaced with metal.

Thinking about a worst case scenario where a lot of force is applied to seat mounting (when seat belts are not fastened to seat), that would seem to me to be a rear end collision. This would have the force of your body pushing back on the seat, potentially ripping the front bolts out of the floor. In this case, there is no loading on the front spacers, and a lot of load on the rear spacers.

On the wood spacer issue:

For worst case, let’s pick a crappy wood, pine. Pine has a compression strength of about 5000 psi. Let’s assume 2 square inches of contact area for a total of 10,000 lbs per spacer.

Seats use a 1/4-20 bolt as I recall. Tensile strength of a grade 2 bolt is 2350 lbs (grade 5 is 3800). Tensile strength and compression strength are two different things, but this gives you a rough comparison of what forces different things can withstand. From this I would suggest that the wood spacers may not be as bad as we might think.

On the raising the seat an inch issue:

Raising the seat an inch would provide more force on the mounting bolts like having a longer wrench on a bolt. On my car the top of the seat is about 27 inches from the floor. For simplicity and worst case, let’s assume I weigh 250 lbs and all of that weight is applied to the top of the seat. That would be a torque of 2.25 feet (27 inches) times 250 lbs for 562 ft lbs on the mounting system. If you add an inch, that makes the force 583 ft lbs. About a 4% change. Base in this I would conclude that the 1 inch spacer doesn’t make a lot of difference. if want to break loose a stuck bolt, you don’t get a wrench that is an inch longer. Doesn’t really matter

The reduction in the track surface area contact with the floor may be a bigger issue with round spacers. It would likely be better to have a long spacer that supported the entire track from front to back, rather than round spacers made of anything.

How about an example crash scenario? I will arbitrarily pick a 10g crash. This means the 583 ft lbs would now be about 5,830.

For two grade to bolts on the front of the seat seeing about half the the force each: about 2900 lbs on a 2300 lbs bolt. So if everything else held up the grade 2 bolts would shear. Given the sheet metal floor, this seems unlikely, but that is speculation, as the strength of the floor depends on many factors and would be hard to calculate.

This is a very crude analysis and has all kinds of unmentioned assumptions and approximations. May have slight errors or wild glaring mistakes. My point from this is that whether we are doing something useful or not depends on the actual numbers. It is easy to spend a lot of time and effort on things that don’t really matter. Is it a gnat or a camel? Hard to tell sometimes.

Changing anything from the factory design that is safety related should be considered carefully. Unintended consequences are very common.

Well, I suppose I have wasted enough time on this.....time to get back to work.
When my wife is involved it's less than 1%.:BangHead:
 
Totally false argument.

It’s true, these cars are nowhere near as safe as a modern car. So we’re all assuming some risk we wouldn’t be if we drove new cars.
Usually I let these things go but since you appear to stubbornly stand by your statement, here is a more detailed explanation.
Totally = 100%.
If what the guy wrote is true, your assertion that it is a "totally false argument" is wrong.
A flawed argument, maybe but not 100%, not totally, not completely or entirely.
 
Ummmmmm...... cooler heads might recall that Rick E covered this EXACT SAME THING in Mopar Action a couple issues back.

I don't recall the factory solution precisely, but seem to recall that it wasn't too far off from what the OP did. And I was kinda surprised by that and thought it seemed kinda low brow but it must've worked.

One of y'all that's wound so tight about this can look it up and see who wins. Imma go look at some Croation AK mags I just bought. They're oily and they smell bad. They're pretty neat.
 
Ok, check out these pics and see if this looks a little better. 1" steel tubing welded to the tracks at the front, 1-1/2" - 2" at the rear to make the seat set at the proper angle. All 3/8" grade 8 bolts, nuts, washers.
The picture under the car shows the reinforcement underneath. Pieces of 2"wide 1/8" thick U-channel, spot welded to the floor from inside.
Last picture is the pieces I'm working on for the passenger side, have to raise it an extra 1/2" for the wife who's a little on the short side.

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IMG_20200409_175140260.jpg


IMG_20200409_171733237.jpg
 
Ok, check out these pics and see if this looks a little better. 1" steel tubing welded to the tracks at the front, 1-1/2" - 2" at the rear to make the seat set at the proper angle. All 3/8" grade 8 bolts, nuts, washers.
The picture under the car shows the reinforcement underneath. Pieces of 2"wide 1/8" thick U-channel, spot welded to the floor from inside.
Last picture is the pieces I'm working on for the passenger side, have to raise it an extra 1/2" for the wife who's a little on the short side.

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LOL yep the Cyber spenders definitely got to your head LOL...
 
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