Britax belt anchors

[Gary Schulz]

I purchased these belts to use on my S project and was wondering if anyone had pictures of the tunnel belt anchorages to use these clip-on ends?

20200322_153255.jpg

[AndyPen]

I don't know about other folks but this is the kind of thing we used.

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/6x-Seat-Belt ... .l4275.c10

The tunnel had a plate with two holes, one bolted to hold the plate against the underside and the other had the loop. The holes and the plate were angled in the direction that the seat belts or harnesses would pull - if that make sense?

7/16 UNF Threads are the ones recommended I think?? Get a few more viewpoints on here first and there may be better ways

[bwaminispeed]

Yep, big eye bolts, have seen/owned a few early Minis with that arrangement for the seat belts....

[1071bob]

The tunnel mounts were made of 1/4" steel plate like these, you'll have to tap one of the holes to 7/16" UNF to take the eye bolt.

[Gary Schulz]

Thank you for the responses. I actually have two of those plates but didn't know what they were for!

Sorry, but one more question... The plates are obviously flat and really don't follow the contour of the tunnel. You just bolt them up tight and there is nothing but the screws/eye on the other side?

Seems like they will distort the metal inside the tunnel.

[360gts]

Gary
Is your car a US import or was it brought over as a personal imported car?
If it a US import is will have a different attachment on the tunnel. Here what the attachment looks like on my 65 S. The bracket has a long eye bolt through it for the belt to connect to.

[Gary Schulz]

My car was purchased new in 1964 at Imperial Motors, Bournemouth. These were the plates I found most likely from this car-

20200323_114419.jpg

I am going to see about getting the eyes, but still a little uncomfortable about bolting these straight plates up to a curved surface...

[bwaminispeed]

Put them in horizontally, less curve to deal with that way.......

[Gary Schulz]

I could put them in horizontally but the car has the correct holes already punched in the tunnel in the correct diagonal orientation so I think I would rather leave it original.

20200323_141452.jpg

[bwaminispeed]

Interesting, never seen that before.......maybe a few washers between the plate and bodyshell would lessen the distortion somewhat.....

[111Robin]

Tapping these thin plates gives nowhere near the thread capacity required for that diameter, is that definitely the recommended fitment method ?. As a rule of thumb you require at least 1.5 times the diameter in thread length engagement to ensure adequate capacity. My Mk2 ado16 had this type of belt but the eye bolts were threaded into captive nuts in the tunnel. It might be ok to use these plates on the underside of the tunnel for additional strength along with nuts but just screwing into them doesn't seem safe to me.

[AndyPen]

Our car's harnesses had a little more use than the ones in the green car, and today I took a pic for you Gary - the plate that in our case, was bolted in, as was the loop we used with a nut on the end. It has made quite a dent in the tunnel as you cans see.

[Gary Schulz]

Thanks for the picture Andy. Looks like distortion around that plate is just to be expected then...

[1071bob]

I think this method of fixing was for the type of belt fixing as in the first picture, these plates have a curve in them to match the tunnel and when I clamped them to the tunnel there was very little distortion.

[111Robin]

I would definitely want more than two small diameter screws loaded in shear for a seat belt anchor. Even if it is a period fitting. Does not look substantial enough.