Hi all,
[Quoted/Reposted with photos embedded - Dapplecreek]
Most of these old buses came with a lap belt for the driver only. If you wanted to add a shoulder belt for the driver or any passenge seats forget it right? Nothing there to mount them to.
One of the first things I did to my bus was throw out the driver's seat. I purchased a driver seat and one middle seat from a minivan along with the seat belts for each. I got the seats mounted in the bus all right but how to put in those pesky shoulder belts?
I got tubular steel and made columns. I riveted the columns to the sheet metal ceiling and welded them to the floor. Then I welded the belt take-up reel to the column near the floor and a 3/8-24 fine thread flange nut to the column to hold the upper belt support. I used a flange nut to give me a bit more area to weld the nut without ruining the threads.
I used a 5/8" long bolt and two washers to secure the upper support bracket to the welded nut with thread-lock compound to keep it from loosening during use. See linked pictures:
The trick was to mount the lower lap belt mounting point. If I welded the mounting nut to the column as I did for the upper mount, the belt straps would cross and rub. I needed a way to allow the belts to slide by each other. See pic:
I took a three inch piece of the same column material and cut it diagonally in half leaving me two "u" channel pieces. I welded them over the belt near the take-up reel and that gave me a place to weld the lower mounting nut.
I sanded down the sharp edges and places where the belt would rub in normal use. The action is very smooth. This is the passenge seatbelt column in the pics. The driver's seatbelt column is identical. I used two by three inch tubular steel but other sizes would do as well.
I can't vouch for the strength of this in a head-on collision with a sequoia but it feels damn rugged, looks clean and provides at the very least some piece of mind. Just needs some rustoleum primer and a bit of paint.
I have attached links to pictures to help you process my written descriptions. Hope this helps someone!
Regards!
Ross
[Ross: open the Google Image site, right click on "Copy Image Address", then (back here, when you're posting) click on the photo icon above the text entry box. It will give you a pop-up where you can paste the image address, and you're good to go. Great job! I need to do this and was wondering how best to go about it. Thanks! -Tim]