It sounds like a great seat belt set up. When you said
"small 87 Dodge pickup" did you mean a Dodge Dakota or one
of those "Nissan" size Dodge pickups?
I too adopted a Chevy S-10 bench seat for my Willys
pickup. It fits great. I cut two pieces of 1/4" steel
plate as a base for the bench seat legs to sit on and then
attached two hinges with more reinforcement 1/4" plate to
fasten to the inside of the storage area. Now my entire
bench seat tilts towards the dash so I can excess the
storage compartments. The tilt setup is hardly
noticeable - so it doesn't look hokey pokey.
Chris Croyle
1961 Willys 4wd PU
Rick48CJ2A@... wrote:
Here's the story of my truck's seat belts.
After driving my truck over 75MPH and then watching a
show on the Discovery
Channel about the old style lap belts, I decided I needed
a set of shoulder
harnesses. I picked up a set from a small 87 Dodge
pickup. Many people
have told me that I should not use junkyard seatbelts and
I suppose they are
right. These seat belts are older and weaker than new
ones but I have never
seen anyone with an 87 vehicle replace their seatbelts
because they were old.
I have also never seen a seatbelt fail in an accident.
Now that I know they
fit I may buy new ones.
For the time being I have given up on finding an original
seat for my truck,
so I installed a bench seat from a 86 Chevy S-10 Pickup.
It fit very well and
it had just been reupholstered before the engine on the
S-10 blew. The $20 I
paid for the seat was less than new seat covers would
have cost for the old
Corvair seats my truck had when I bought it. Anyway back
to the seat belts.
I mounted the center seat belt cables through the holes
the previous owner had
drilled in the floor near the back of the cab. I used
large thick washers to
help prevent them from pulling through in an accident.
The real challenge was
installing the shoulder harness in the door-post. I had
several price quotes
from shops to weld in beef-up plates and mounting nuts,
but they where all
over $150 and involved cutting up my door post. I
eventually discovered that
the door-post have a factory hole at the bottom rear
facing panel that is
about 2" X 3". I was able to drill a " hole into the
post just above
shoulder height and install the bolts from the inside.
The inertia real
required 2 holes, one for the bolt and one for the
alignment pin. Use a level
to make sure these holes are aligned or the inertia real
will not work
properly. I bought grade 8 bolts that were the right
length (I believe that
was 1 1/2") and welded a 2" washer on under the head. A
few light weld marks
on the bottom of the washer prevented the assembly from
turning later (This
made it kinda like a lock washer). I fed a wire down
through the holes that I
drilled and attached it to the threaded ends of the
bolt/washer assembly with
tape. I pulled the bolt up through the access hole and
into the mounting hole
I drilled. The light weld marks held the bolt from
turning while I tightened
the nut on the seatbelt.
By adjusting for the right length bolt I was even able to
install the factory
trim for a professional appearance. The door-post is
straight with the
vehicle therefore the inertia real works perfectly. I
did this about 4 months
ago and I am very happy with the results. I paid less
than $60 for the entire
setup including the seat, belts and hardware. I know
this isn't factory
original but they look like they could be.
Rick S
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