General Rat progress

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General Rat progress

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Bedwellty, South Wales.
Didn't get anything done today due to Christmas shopping (although I did pick up the sump guard while I was out) and didn't have time to post on what I did yesterday last night.

Yesterday was a pretty good day. The brakes are now fully working and apparently leak free. They'll need a bit of use to give 100% confidence though. Tomorrow it will be ready to drive properly, conditions permitting.

I thought I'd install the drivers seat just for the occasion (pic below). While the seat was in position I fitted the harness loosely to see where I'd need to fix it properly. The existing holes in the floor where the original seat belt fixings were are OK for the bottom part of the harness. However, the upper harness mount is supposed to fit to the rear seat belt upper mount in a normal car. Obviously I can't do that in this case. Does anyone know what the rules are for harnesses? Can I mount the upper harness fixing lower down behind the seat? My current thinking is to install a bar right across the car at about half seat height to take the harness upper mounts. In the pic you can make out the rear wheel arches; I want to install the bar at the top of these. This means the upper part of the harness will pass through the aperture in the headreast then down the back of the seat to the bar. Is this legal? Or will I have to install the bar at shoulder height (sitting in the seat) so that the harness fixes directly behind my head?

Pics:

1. Seat and harness

Ratdriverseat.jpg


2. Sump guard
Ratsumpguard.jpg
 
I wouldn't fit a bar the entire length as unless it is very strong it will bend and you will still hit something with the head. I would use the rear fixing on the floor for the rear seat belt. It's what I used when banger racing and never had a problem even in the destruction final's.
 
There are no rear seat belt fixing points Alan, it's only a 2 seater! Even if there were, the harness would have to go through the back window. I'd like to retain the back window.

The bar I had in mind was 40x40 box section. It should be plenty strong enough. I was more concerned about the legalities of the fixing points as this will be used on-road as well.
 
40X40 should be fine, but I would make it at least 2mm wall thickness. If memory serves right from my kit building days the bar must be welded to the main frame of the car and you must have welded thread inserts for the belts to bolt to. cheers Damon
 
From the SVA inspection manual:
The upper seat belt anchorage point must be at least 450mm above the reference point.
The reference point is the front upper corner of a 136mm x 53mm block placed face down and against the back of the seat. I tried doing ASCII art but the forum helpfully removes the spaces...

BTW that bash plate looks a lot less battered than mine :devil:
 
Les wrote:
The upper seat belt anchorage point must be at least 450mm above the reference point.
The reference point is the front upper corner of a 136mm x 53mm block placed face down and against the back of the seat.

This is going to be impossible to achieve. The seat does not fold forward as it's a bucket seat. When fixed in place there's only a couple of mm clearance between the back of the seat and the rear window when it's in the correct driving position for me.
However, the car only needs to go through an MOT when I've rebuilt it, not SVA, as it was built and registered long before SVA became law.
So, will the MOT tester be looking at the position of the mounts or just making sure they're secure?
 
Sorry, I should have been clearer. The block is placed on the seat cushion with the seat in the normal driving position. If you ignore the bit about the block you basically need the mount to be at least 500mm above the top of the seat cushion.

This is for SVA. C&U may specify different minimum standards. In practice if it looks sensible I doubt if any MOT inspector is going to query it.

Les
 
That's good to know. By 'permanent fixture' does he mean a part of the chassis as in welded in? Damon reckons it should be.

Here are a couple more pics for clarification.

Ratpix-seat1.jpg


In the pic above you can clearly see that the space behind the seat rapidly diminishes towards the top of the seat. Now you can see both wheel arches. I intent to install a bar across the top of these right across the car.

Ratpix-back.jpg


In the above pic it's not too clear but the top of the seat is just about touching the glass.

Ratpix-harnessanchor1.jpg


In the above pic you can see the bottom harness anchor. It's the same onboth sides of the seat. There's a bar under the floor running right across the width of the car that these bolt through.
 
Alan.D said:
He said as long as it was a permanant secure fixture he wouldn't fail it.

If it looks sensible and safe most MOT testers will pass it (y) I've seen some real howlers on kit cars in the past that have passed (not just the seat belts):eek: Its all looking good Rick, well done. cheers Damon
 
Alan.D said:
Erm :eek: you can't use those eye bolts, that is a fail as it has to be a permanant fitting OK for racing but illegal on the road.

My Mercedes 190e 2.3-16v has passed 4 MOT's with belts just like that, sold for road use, e-marked and everything :confused:

Just look at the seat belt on your Panda, there's loads of 'bits' between the press buckle and the chassis ( seat, runners, runner catch) :eek:
 
Odd question that you've probably already thought of but I thought I'd mention it in case like me you get caught up and forget the silly little things like this. Seeing as that seat doesn't appear adjustable backwards and forwards, are you sure that seat position will give you enough leg room?
 
Looks like the seat and seatbelt/harness is a bit of a hot potato both MoT and SVA wise.

The seats, harness and eye bolts all came from the same production car (another one of my projects) which had a current MoT when I bought it with these fittings.

The seats are fitted with rails which allow normal reach adjustment as you'd find on any other car.

I will carry on with the plan and if it does fail the MoT come the big day it won't be much trouble to fit normal seats and three point belts as that's what was in it when I bought it anyway.

Ref the eyebolts:
The only problem I can see with these is that they don't screw into welded thread inserts in the chassis. Rather, they pass through the chassis and are held in with nuts. This is how the original seat belt anchors were fitted anyway and it wasn't a problem.
 
When looking through the legislation that is one of the points I picked up on re the eye bolts. Apparently if you just bolt them in place with standard seatbelt bolts (even using the eye bolts but not connecting them to the eye's :confused: ) that is fine.
 
Alan said:
When looking through the legislation that is one of the points I picked up on re the eye bolts. Apparently if you just bolt them in place with standard seatbelt bolts (even using the eye bolts but not connecting them to the eye's :confused: ) that is fine.

Now I'm confused. It sounds like I can fit them but not use them?
 
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