Morris Minor Owners Club

I have changed my seat belts to wind up ones , problem is that I need to put the top bracket in line with the belt ,and that must be upright for the locking system to work and on the 2 door that puts the top of the belt in line with my shoulder , so it is constantly slipping off . Will the wind up mechanism work if I move the top bracket backwards to where it was on the old belt . someone slse must have had this problem !!
Regards Phil

I will be interested in the reply as I have some to fit

On a four door saloon almost any type will fit as they are straight up.
You need the correct type for a 2 door. I've had major problems in the past as when leaned over they didn't work and when straight up the belt snagged and didn't fully retract without assistance (MOT fail). In the end I bought and fitted statics for the MOT and then left the statics in anyway as I like them.
The Minor centres should be able to sell the correct type of inertia belt.

What condidtion are your static belts? I had some nice ones (thanks Dan) but i fitted them to my 4 door which has now gone. I'm after a set or my 58... (no big rush )

I have fitted Metro seatbelts to my daughters car by fabricating a braket to shift them forward at floor level so that they are in line with pillar above (2 door). I then welded in a tapped tube into the B pillar about half way. The result being a top bracket position which is the same as the Metro, i.e a modern car. This has worked very well, been through two MOT's and one driving test with no problems. I am going to do something a bit different for my son's car soon. He is a bit taller than my daughter and so I am fitting the seats a bit further back fo him. I will be using Metro (again) rear seatbelts as they are fitted the other way around, namely the bulk of the mechanism faces outwards from the car as they are designed to fit inside the rear trim. I am going to fit these in the same way for the moggie. by adding a slit to the top forward corner of the rear trim to allow the belt to exit very close to the bottom edge of the side windows. I will then weld in a brace from the original seat belt top mounting, across to the middle of the door pillar and attach the belt top braket to this. That is the plan anyway, I will let you know how I get on in the next month or so. I should add that as I have removed all of the glass to paint his car silver, the welding is no problem, as far as damaging the glass goes anyway.

On my 2 door the inertia reels are fitted to the kick plate under the rear seats. The strap rises to a point midway along the rail under the side windows where the upper mounting feeds it towards your shoulder without the problem of it slipping off.

ah Pete , this sounds interesting!!

In south australia we are not required to fit belts to a car that came without them. Infact one unlucky miss got her car defected for having belts fitted to it, as the buckle was too high.

If you want to fit belts in SA you have to get an engineers certificate to say they are safe. Not a problem ffor me as i am both an engineer and work for a company that once belonged to britax and sold the aftermaket fitting kit. The engineer who designed it is still here too!

In south australia we are not required to fit belts to a car that came without them

Same here, however with our increasing traffic, decreasing general driving skills and the fact that some family saloons are capable of 140mph it's pretty advisdeable to have seatbelts fitted if you want to feel safe when driving....

Hey, all moggies could go 140mph if you want to, its just that we care about our cars...

an lovly v8 in the old gril makes over people want them,
moggys that is
an v8 0 to 115 mph 15 secs see that in some mag

makes over people want them,
moggys that is

I think I'm far too sober to guess the hidden meaning

You're not alone.

well it simple rearly
makes other peolpe want them means there is a lot of folk out who see the old morris minor and i know for a fact that thay underestmat them with the speed reilabilty durabilty etc ,
thats why other people wants one.
its very simple
there was once sead " youve either owned one ,drivern one ,been in one or hand one in the family an morris minor an true british evey day car "
i hope will clear things up

Anyone got a neat and pretty way of seating the inertia reel anchorage points between the seats? (ie the bits that the metal plates lock into and then you press a button on them to get loose again)?

My van has these fitted but the central bits are held together with a bit of plastic to stop them flopping down out of reach - very unsatisfying . There has to be a better, more elegant solution!

juliet

wibble_puppy wrote:Anyone got a neat and pretty way of seating the inertia reel anchorage points between the seats? (ie the bits that the metal plates lock into and then you press a button on them to get loose again)?

My van has these fitted but the central bits are held together with a bit of plastic to stop them flopping down out of reach - very unsatisfying . There has to be a better, more elegant solution!

juliet

I'm assuming you mean the seat belt stalks here.
I don't know what type of buckle you have, but you can replace the webbing type stalk with a wire strand type that is self supporting.
You can see the differences here:
http://www.autolivaftermarket.com/pr-buckles.htm

You might need to replace the reel part of the belt to match the replacement buckle .

hi scott and thanks very much for the link. None of the seat belts pictured there seems to match mine, and I don't think I described them very well - sorry.

They are very bog-standard inertia reel belts with a sliding metal plate on a webbing strap. The centrally mounted part is a black plastic box on a metal stalk covered in black plastic, it has a slot to receive the metal plate, and a large orange button beside the slot. You pull the strap across you and snap the metal plate into the slot, and to release it you push the orange button and it pops out. They are just like the ones you find on the majority of modern cars.

The problem I'm finding is that while this system does definitely work, the metal stalks are a bit whimsical and tend to flop down and therefore become less easily accessible: so some previous owner has tied the stalks of the two together with a piece of plastic. This helps to stop them flopping over, but is very inelegant!

In modern cars the metal stalks seem to spring merrily from the floor between the seats rather than flopping over (or else they are engineered into the inner sides of the seats). I just wondered if there was a way of persuading my stalks to remain more upright, and therefore not need tying together.

I realise the terminology of this is leading me to dig myself a very deep and murky hole , so before I get any comedy comments, this is not a problem I've had before (or not in my private life anyway)!!!!

Cheers

juliet

Are they not bolted to a right angled steel bracket on the floor? If so, just tighten the bolt there.
a

*goes to double-check*

ok let's see if i can describe this clearly ....

Each socket thingy (3 inches deep) is mounted on a stalk like I said before. Each stalk is actually quite long (15 inches not including the socket), and extends from between the seats right back, running low to the floor, to an anchor point just behind the inner metal support of its respective seat. There the end of the stalk is flattened into a centrally pierced circle (like a flat Polo) (the mint not the car), and this circle is bolted to the floorpan. So I think I am right in saying no, there is no right angled steel bracket.

Any help?

Hmm... I'll have to think about that one. If the stalk is simply too flexible, I'd say you're probably gubbed without a new one...

bigginger wrote:If the stalk is simply too flexible, I'd say you're probably gubbed without a new one...

Sounds like it's going to be the case.

Can you tell what the actual stalk (between the buckle socket & the floor mount) is made of?
If the stalk is made of wire (wire rope) & it is floppy, there's a possibility that some strands have broken.
There'll be seat belt suppliers a lot closer to you, that link is just one I found quickly showing the different types of stalks (and it's Australian).