Early A shoulder belts?

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wheelsport

wheelsport

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The other day my wife and I were driving the Barracuda around town. When we arrived home she told me she felt frightened without seat belts. So, it's time to install them but I feel lap belts aren't that great. Has anyone ever attempted to install shoulder belts in an early Barracuda?
 
Trust me, dont waste your time. Folks like that will worry next about your full metal dash being a safety hazard, or the brakes, and dont even tell them about the single point of failure Master Cylinder!!. You going to child proof your entire car because these Nervous Nellies are Scaredy Cats?? I had a co worker once who rode with me every other day back and forth to work. I have full harness seat belts, brand new tires, AND front disk brakes w/stainless steel brake lines on my 89 Accord, with only 120k miles on her, but the limited padded dash just freaked him out to a point he wouldnt ride in my car any more so I told him to F off.... but this IS your Wife, so what the hell do I know? Happy Wife, Happy Life... lol....

Just tell her it is the way it is. "You wont let me buy a Motorcycle, so if u dont feel safe, Ill just drive it by myself then, but please try and understand, I need some risk once a while in my life in order to feel alive....Im a MAN after all, so have fun @ your Book Party, Dear... " :)
 
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wheelsport said:
The other day my wife and I were driving the Barracuda around town. When we arrived home she told me she felt frightened without seat belts. So, it's time to install them but I feel lap belts aren't that great. Has anyone ever attempted to install shoulder belts in an early Barracuda?
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If you arent worried about being stock- find set of Chrysler Sebring or 200 seats- shoulder harness is built into seat....
 
I don't think that you can safely retrofit belts in a vehicle that wasn't engineered to have them originally. Your car should have anchors in the floor for lap belts. If that's not good enough maybe you should just move on to a newer car that was engineered for shoulder belts...
 
For info on good options for upgraded seat belts, read this post starting about halfway down where it says "Once you've got the car in good running condition…".

Your wife is right: these are unsafe cars. Always were, always will be. You can make it somewhat less abjectly dangerous with better seat belts, brakes, lights, etc, but many of such a car's safety hazards cannot be fixed. You cannot overcome the complete lack of any crashworthiness or post-crash survivability safety engineering in these cars—the solid steering column, the weak door latches, the lack of crush zones, side impact protection, fuel system impact protection, or any other basic crashworthiness engineering, design, or construction. The knowledge and technology did not exist. See this with a lot of '60s Chrysler Corporation vehicles. Note how well the stronger, improved-for-1964 door latches work (not) to prevent the door flying open in a crash. I see a lot of very dead and very maimed people when I view that video. Take a look at this graph of U.S. traffic fatalities over time: a whole lot fewer people dying lately despite a whole lot more people driving a whole lot more miles. The main driver of that trend is safer cars. (And that graph shows only deaths—it does not show the enormous reduction in severe, debilitating, and disfiguring injuries).

Lap belts. If that's not good enough(…)
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"If"? See here (2nd half by Chrysler)
 
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wheelsport said:
The other day my wife and I were driving the Barracuda around town. When we arrived home she told me she felt frightened without seat belts. So, it's time to install them but I feel lap belts aren't that great. Has anyone ever attempted to install shoulder belts in an early Barracuda?
Click to expand...

I haven't done it to my 65 Barracuda yet, but I WILL be installing 3 point belts in it when I redo it coming up in the next year or so. I have used 3 point belts from the link below in several Mopars I had in the past, and was very happy with them. One was a 64 Belvedere wagon that never had shoulder belts. I will make my own mount for the shoulder belt attachment while the headliner is out. It's not that difficult.
Seat Belts Made In USA. Styles And Colors For Most Makes.Call:(302) 629-8508
 
Blainethemono said:
Trust me, dont waste your time. Folks like that will worry next about your full metal dash being a safety hazard, or the brakes, and dont even tell them about the single point of failure Master Cylinder!!. You going to child proof your entire car because these Nervous Nellies are Scaredy Cats?? I had a co worker once who rode with me every other day back and forth to work. I have full harness seat belts, brand new tires, AND front disk brakes w/stainless steel brake lines on my 89 Accord, with only 120k miles on her, but the limited padded dash just freaked him out to a point he wouldnt ride in my car any more so I told him to F off.... but this IS your Wife, so what the hell do I know? Happy Wife, Happy Life... lol....

Just tell her it is the way it is. "You wont let me buy a Motorcycle, so if u dont feel safe, Ill just drive it by myself then, but please try and understand, I need some risk once a while in my life in order to feel alive....Im a MAN after all, so have fun @ your Book Party, Dear... " :)
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What kind of a jerk are you? For your info my wife is no "Nervous Nelly"! Two weeks ago we were hit head on by a wrong way driver while driving my '08 Sebring convertible. The shoulder belts and air bags saved her from injury. She has good reason to be apprehensive.
 
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I agree that vintage cars are dangerous but guys like us still love driving them and will continue driving them until we are put underground. Had we been in the Barracuda we would probably be in the morgue. I sincerely thank Chrysler for building a very solid car.
I watched a video on installing 3 point belts in a early Mustang, which are built much like our Barracudas. The upper mount was welded to the reinforced coat hanger location. Neither of these cars have the structural strength for 3 point belts. However, anything is better than nothing. Though this method isn't the greatest it gives more restraint than a lap belt thus making our cars a little safer than stock. My car has no reinforced floor belt locations so I will need to reinforce the mount locations with large plates and follow the example of the Mustang for the upper belt mount.
 
wheelsport said:
I agree that vintage cars are dangerous but guys like us still love driving them and will continue driving them until we are put underground. Had we been in the Barracuda we would probably be in the morgue. I sincerely thank Chrysler for building a very solid car.
I watched a video on installing 3 point belts in a early Mustang, which are built much like our Barracudas. The upper mount was welded to the reinforced coat hanger location. Neither of these cars have the structural strength for 3 point belts. However, anything is better than nothing. Though this method isn't the greatest it gives more restraint than a lap belt thus making our cars a little safer than stock. My car has no reinforced floor belt locations so I will need to reinforce the mount locations with large plates and follow the example of the Mustang for the upper belt mount.
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I like your plan to make things safer!
I did the reinforcing plate on my '37 Pontiac streetrod. 3/8" plate with a 1/2" nut welded behind it is pretty secure, though that car has considerably heavier steel than my Valiant! Mine's a convertible so I like the Sebring seat idea.
 
When you weld your reinforcing plates to the trans tunnel, be sure to crawl under the car to verify that your newly installed seat belt bolts aren't too close to the driveshaft. When I added the 3 point belts to my Belvedere wagon, I welded a lock nut into a piece of 3/16 steel plate, and fished it up thru the door post between the front and back doors, and then welded thru the inside of the door post to attach the plate/nut. I used the stock seat belt bolt holes in the floor. It worked nice on that car, but I will have to do something different with the Barracuda shoulder belts.
 
wheelsport said:
What kind of a jerk are you? For your info my wife is no "Nervous Nelly"! Two weeks ago we were hit head on by a wrong way driver while driving my '08 Sebring convertible. The shoulder belts and air bags saved her from injury. She has good reason to be apprehensive.
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Not a jerk @ all. Ive was empathizing with you...Sticking up for a fellow Bro, and the information above would have been NICE to know ahead of time.... I almost feel like I was set up... News for you, Forums are social things, like a Bar or Tavern or beers over a late night campfire, not everybody is going to agree with everybody, and it is hard to convey sarcasm, impish grins, smirks, or levity thru text... <--- insert obligatory Happy face here....

Im very happy to know your Wife was saved from serious injury.......
 
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Blainethemono said:
Ive was empathizing with you...Sticking up for a fellow Bro, and the information above would have been NICE to know ahead of time.... I almost feel like I was set up.
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You've made it sound like you think his wife's opinions and preferences only matter because she was in a serious wreck. Because…uh…because fellow bro and stuff, or something. And besides, you were, uh, you were just…joking! Being social and stuff!

Dude: when you find yourself in ѕhit up to your ears, stop digging, eh!
lolsign.gif
 
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