Pickup seatbelt mounting

[59Elva]

I’m new here, I used to follow the LCV forum until it shut down. I’m awaiting delivery of a replacement 1959 Minor pickup. My previous truck of 25 years was killed in November of 2019 when an oncoming Toyota crossed over the center line apparently attempting to turn onto a side street that I was passing by. I limped away from the crash after taking out the rear view mirror and windshield with my head. Not wanting to repeat the experience I want to install at least lap belts in the new truck. Links to the workshop manual in earlier posts seem to have expired. Does anyone have experience or advice regarding retrofitting belts to a pickup? Just drill holes in the floor and sandwich with a couple oversized washers?
Thanks,
Bill B.

[59Elva]

My green replacement pickup arrived yesterday and I found the lap belts that I never installed in the blue one. A previous owner had upholstered the cab back and side pillars in vinyl. Im pretty sure I won’t find any mounting points so I’ll just drill holes in the floor behind the seats.
The truck has been bumped to a 1275cc but is breathing thru the original HS2 and exhaust. After I sort the truck out and drive it a bit I’ll probably install the twin carb setup left over from my ‘69 Sprite.

[les]

Looks a smart pick up !

[mowogg]

What year was it made?

Seat belt mounts were fitted post 1965, although the door pillar mounts were earlier

[philthehill]

Thankfully you limped away from the accident. Pity the poor Minor - such a shame.
Lap belts will not stop your head and upper body going forward.
I would recommend that you have as a minimum a lap and diagonal seat belt fitted. Even better have a 4 point fixing - that is two straps over the shoulder and the lap strap. I had the 4 point fixing way back fitted to my Minor and I did feel a lot safer.
The other possibility is the 3 point harness as per the link https://www.merlinmotorsport.co.uk/p/tr ... ess-21a300

[59Elva]

I made some more progress during a spell of dry, sunny, but not terribly hot weather. Lap belts have been installed. A too modern LED number plate light wired in. New rear bearings and hub seals. Replaced the hemorrhaging 4.55 diff with a 3.9 with new pinion seal. This necessitated filling through the hub as the new diff and old housing don’t have fill plugs. The horn and all lights are now working. The only thing that may not pass inspection are the old but unworn 175-14 tires. I dressed them up, they look pretty but have some checking at the edge of the tread. I have an unmounted set of 145-14 Firestones and extra 3” rims but they need blasting and painting.
After registering and road testing the next step will be fit the 1275 with twin carbs and fabricate a bigger bore exhaust system.
Don’t know why one photo is upside down. If I knew how to manipulate gravity the repairs would have been much easier.

[geoberni]

Don’t know why one photo is upside down. If I knew how to manipulate gravity the repairs would have been much easier.

It's caused by the metadata the phone embed with the image. When you take a landscape image, the phone assumes you're right handed and detects the position of the phone. Quite often it gets the data wrong. Often a PC/laptop will display it how you intended, but the Message Board thinks otherwise.
The best way to fix it is open the image, select Edit, alter the size a little or crop it down to what you're really after showing, and resave it.
The Save should then get new metadata the way you want it.

Selecting [Place in Line] removes the white border saying 'ATTACHMENTS'...

IMG_2272.jpg (3.07 MiB) Viewed 2929 times