How to mount harnesses with eyelets??

[Weeman]

Hi guys, I'm putting 4 points in the car to go with the seats, I wont have a cage until later in the year, so they will have to mount with eyelets for now. Can anyone tell me the best way of mounting these, where to put the backing plate etc? car is an e30 2 door. Any pics of installations would be great to help me along.

[ed325i]

Like this with a plate the other side.

[Andye]

With the back seat out there are two threaded nuts welded into the floor each side, which you can screw the eye bolts into for the shoulder belts. My subframes came with treaded nuts, one on each side to take eye bolts for the lap belts. But if the subframes don't have the provision for eye bolts then one can go in the hole that you take the bolt out of that holds the seat belt in place at the bottom of the b pillar and you will then possibly have to drill a couple of holes in the prop tunnel and use the backing plate under the car. If you need me to I can get some pics to you of mine.

Cheers

Andy

[ed325i]

The shoulder belts shouldnt be mounted down low, Thats why the harness bars on a roll cage are high, so if you have no cage I would mount them like in the pic.

[schuey]

Yep-shoulder level is best,in a really big off having them mounted low can cause serious back injuries

[JimmyC]

If you cant mount harnesses properly ie to a harness bar I wouldn't use them, stick to the inertia belt with a glock thing

Personally I wouldn't trust the rear bulk head or parcel shelf holding up in a big smack

Just my 2ps

[ed325i]

I would think it would be ok with the plates behind them.

[agent006]

I suspect the whole panel will come away. Given how well it's not welded at the top and how thick it itsn't.

[Brian28]

Both our race cars were done like that last season, a bit of flat bar behind the bulkhead and they were fine for scrutineering so although not as good as harness bars should be safe enough. A bigger advantage of harness bars is probably that there is a lot less belt stretch in the event of a spill rather than the security of the anchoring points. So given a choice I'd have harness bars, but still feel safe enough without them.

[Weeman]

Thanks guys

[M3GTR]

That high up mounting point on the rear bulkhead is asking for trouble if you ask me.... I've seen cars that have crashed not that hard and rip a 4" square plate through the floorpan of an e30!! Although low down isn't ideal, if you haven't got shoulder hight harness bars welded into a cage, I'd go with the belt original mounting points ... Jimmy C is correct.

[jkarran]

Could you weld a bar between the C pillars just above the shelf, I've thought about doing that on mine so I could keep the back seat (I need it and haven't got a cage). I haven't stripped the covering off yet to see how strong they are, my bet is 'very'.

If it's just the strength of the spot welding on the bulkhead that's a concern, that's simple enough to fix surely.

jk

[M3GTR]

I guess that's an option, but my concern with welding to the C pillars would be if the car is rolling or takes a hit on the C pillar, there's a strong likelihood it might affect the weld that's holding the bar your belts are attached to.

I don't think it's the spot welding I'd be concerned about as even if it's seam welded, it's the guage of steel used for the bulkhead is still the same.

Looking at that photo again, are those large rectangular pieces of steel aswell as the circular washers? I'd be more confident if they are and they were welded to the bulkhead.