Harness bar with no cage??

[LowBuckX]

ON Dream car garage they installed a harness bar on a new corvette using existing bolt holes with no cage. Then on the newest DCG They tested the Year One bandit car and stated it had a bolt in Harness bar but I saw no cage.

Is this something I could do? And how would I go about it?

I have no Idea how much reinforcing of the sheet metal on the interior would have to be done to make it safe. I dont want to cage it and I want it removeable so I can drive with my son in back.


Thanks.

[MrQuick]

You can easily make a belt hoop bar that ties into your subframe connectors. Problem with floor mounts is it make the belt support you in the wrong position during an accident.

[LowBuckX]

Im realy not a fan of incorrectly installed safety devices... lol.. The hoop you speak of would have to come up to shoulder height then it would have to be supported again for or aft to be effective at all. Then i may as well put a roll bar in and I just dont want that.

[jason@gmachine]

i would not run a harness bar with those harnesses, in reality it is unsafe and can cause serious harm or death where the stock belts wont.

its kinda like the same theory with cage tubes that are to close to the driver head. You can do it, but its not safe.


Jason

[LowBuckX]

Why would 5 point be less safe than 30+ year old stockers? Harness bar would be behind seat and not near my head.

[6'9"Witha69]

Why would 5 point be less safe than 30+ year old stockers? Harness bar would be behind seat and not near my head.In a rollover it keeps you sitting upright and can crush your head, break your neck since your torso can't move but the roof did. 3 points and lapo belts allow your torso to move inward, preventing the issue.

[LowBuckX]

That makes sence. Do they sell performance 3 points?

[6'9"Witha69]

I have the Morris Classic 3 points in mine and they work well. Fortunately I haven't had to really "try them out" yet.

[CarlC]

I too had concerns about passenger safety, especially my two boys, four and seven years, riding in the back seat with a roll bar. Following is not the best solution but for me it was the best balance.

What I wanted is to be able to run 5-points on track days, have modern front and rear retractable seat belts, and to keep it reasonably safe.

The car now has a roll bar but no full aft bars. Instead the top of the hoop is attached to the sail panel where the original shoulder belt attached. I did not want aft bars since they would be too dangerous for the kids. The crossbar is removable. Four 5/16" -18 coupling nuts were welded into the bar. Long internal wrenching set screws are normally screwed into the bar and cannot be seen. When needed, a small allen wrench is used to thread them out and slide on the bar. This makes installation of the bar a one-man affair. The shoulder harnesses are not shown in the picture. The retractable seat belt mechanism and mounting anchor bolt to the cage hoop. A through-hole was drilled in the hoop and a coupling nut welded in from both sides. The three and five point lap belts both mount together using a GM seat belt bolt that has a very long shoulder. The hoop is a $45 CE part that was bent slightly back at the mid-bend to better fit the side/main window parting line.

The rear belts are also retractable. The main difficulty in using a shoulder belt in the first gen F-body is how to adequately attach the shoulder point. After laying on my back in the trunk for quite a while I decided that the original speaker shelf could be reinforced without having to cut up the car. On the outboard section of the shelf there are two sandwiched layers. Both of these layers are spot welded together. The surrounding structures include the rear tulip panel, sail panel, quarter panel, and the wheelwell-to-trunk deck support columns. By adding in a support plate that spans from the front of the shelf, and aft to just forward of the tulip panel, a much more rigid mounting point can be made since it ties into many of these structures. There is also a large washer welded to the support plate to help distribute anchor bolt load. It's not the prettiest, but unless I lay on my back in the truck it cannot be seen. If I had the opportunity to do this during restoration I might have done it a bit differently, but the concept would be the same.

https://static1.pt-content.com/images/noimg.gif (http://img504.imageshack.us/my.php?image=rollbar1fz8.jpg)
https://static1.pt-content.com/images/noimg.gif (http://img504.imageshack.us/my.php?image=rearseatbeltattachmentuh4.jpg)

[6'9"Witha69]

Damn Carl. You were talking about that when I was over, didn't know it was done. I might need to take a look and get a little hand to do the same (been promising the wife to "keep it safe" for the kids while trying to "make it safe" for track days).

[CarlC]

Nick,

I'm planning on going to this on Saturday. If you want to meet up there, get in for free, and check it out just let me know.

https://www.pro-touring.com/forum/showthread.php?t=34601

[6'9"Witha69]

Damn, I need to be at a birthday dinner for my father in law.

What did the retractors you used come out of?

[CarlC]

All of the belts are Beams products purchased from seatbeltpros.com

[LowBuckX]

I like that Carl.

[John S]

Within thw past year I remember seeing two different kits designed to mount shoulder harnesses in cars that did not have cages or support bars. One kit had a cross bar that bolted into the car between the b pillars, then had two braces that triangulated down to the tunnel and bolted in there. It was designed to be removable.
The other one that I saw used a cable that got bolted to the reat seat belt locations, came through between the seat and back rest and the shoulder straps mounted to the cable. because I was not interested in harnesses at the time I never bookmarked the pages but a google may turn them up.

[MonzaRacer]

OK so scrubbing up some old moldy rotten garbage stockers that will only slam your head into a window or not even hold you at all or you install a set of 5 ways, slide the anti submarine beltunder the seat and simply wear the dang things. As for me I have seen way too many people use old crap or some generic replacement the doesnt have a FMVSS tag.
As for stockers I have been hurt more when ewearing stock 3 ways than never wearing any at all or just a waist belt.
As for me I figure on using the roof mounted upper mount on my monza and then simply run the uppers crossed and hook my right side into the door side floor mount. And as for my seats I am rebuilding my seats with a set of relining units I scored for 10 bucks but right now I am having to narrow the frames to fit in the Monza.
also I have seen several cars with 4 and 5 ways rolled over and havent seen anything that severe in the ways of roof cruxhing and the drivers walked away.
Besides if you have the stockers on and flip over on the roof and land hard enough to crush the roof you have a VERY slim chance of surviving in my opinion.
I have actually seen many cars that the occupants have either been killed or survived and the carnage was much worse than being upside down, and that was with the cars running up under ICC bars on semis.
AS for me I would take a better seat belt attached to stock locations than using old moldy stockers or even reproductions.

[MonzaRacer]

Oh and a lot of the replacements that do have FMVSS tags are not actually true ,legal replacements. A friend ofmine had some and his girl friend got a broken hip out of the wreck and her family tried to sue for millions (even though they paid the med bills, her year of college tuition and her lost pay ).
while the judge gave him points for having new seat belts the lawyer actually made part of the case that the belts were not legal for his vehicle(but they would have been legal for a grain truck with lap belts only) but held that he bought with good intentions and simply was sold inferior parts. He had a case but her parents didnt.

[LS6 Tommy]

3 points and lapo belts allow your torso to move inward, preventing the issue.

Only if your belt tensioners & ratchets are disabled...


Tommy

[6'9"Witha69]

Only if your belt tensioners & ratchets are disabled...


TommyInward as in toward the centerline of th vehicle. Forward not as that are what the tensioners and ratchets are for.

[silver69camaro]

In a rollover it keeps you sitting upright and can crush your head, break your neck since your torso can't move but the roof did. 3 points and lapo belts allow your torso to move inward, preventing the issue.

Just to clarify, that's assuming no hoop is installed.

Harness bars are used for low speed events only where rollovers aren't an issue.

[6'9"Witha69]

Just to clarify, that's assuming no hoop is installed.

Harness bars are used for low speed events only where rollovers aren't an issue.Correct.

[LS6 Tommy]

Inward as in toward the centerline of th vehicle. Forward not as that are what the tensioners and ratchets are for.

Trust me, if the tensioners & ratchets are locked down, your movement toward the vehicle centerline is going to be minimal at best. Definitely not enough to protect you from damage to the outboard side of your body/head should that side of the vehicle intrude.

Tommy

[dusterbd13]

after installing a few harness bars in corvettes, and building one for a dakota, personally i like them for track days. they provide a good middle of the road solution to proper geometry on five point harnesses. what really worries me is the guys that run the huge belts to teh back seat floorpan. thats just scary looking to me, and i see a lot of guys in DE1 and DE2 running them.
as far as the roof crushing/3 point thing, i dont know as none of my customers have rolled their cars with a harness bar. i do know that the properly functioning 3 points in the subaru i rolled helped to hold me upright throughout the trip.

as for fabricating one in a classic musclecar, i have looked at this for a 66 mustang, a 70 duster, and a 73 camaro. all the cars are similar as they have no real solid b-pillar to mount to, and the factory 3 point location (for two of them) is in the roof structure. the solution i devised, but have not implemented yet, is to use a tube running from theupper seatbelt mount to a plated section of floor, with a stub sticking out much the same way as a stub for a swing out door bar. do this on both sides, and use a triangulation brace top the rear of the car. bolt the harness bar to the stubs coming off the side tubes, and rock.

on a side note, on the vettes we use the factory lap belt mounting locations for the lap belts, and the two bolts for the pivots on the three point seatbelts to bolt the bar in. then most of them use a rod running to a seatbelt bolt to keep ot from rotating.


hope this helps, and i can maybe add more when im not sick.
Michael

[XLexusTech]

Jake How much does that cage set one back?