Rear Seat Belts in 56 2 Door Post

[Rodney354]

I'm wanting to install retractable 3 point seatbelts in the backseat for my kids to use. I searched this site and couldn't find very much info. I was thinking of mounting the retractable part behind the seat in the trunk and bringing the belt through the parcel tray, and mounting the other parts like you would a lap belt. I crawled around in the trunk today trying to decide what would be strong enough to mount to. I'm not sure if the metal bottom of the trunk is strong enough. The strongest thing in the whole trunk seems to be the bracket the trunk hinges mount to that run down to the fender well, but not sure how wise it would be to mount anything to that. Has anyone done this to their car or seen it done? Any advice or thoughts would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks for the help,
Rodney

Below is what I'm looking at doing. Sorry they are not the largest pictures.

[Rick_L]

I think the reason that you don't find much information is that most people don't do a 3 point belt in the back seat because it's a fair amount of extra trouble, even without considering what it takes to do it right.

I think you have to do 3 things to make it work correctly.

1. Where the belt comes through the package tray, you need to provide something that won't cut or abrade the belt.

2. Put the anchor for the belt in a stiff area, like where there's an intersection of a vertical and a horizontal panel. Close to the package tray/seat back/window is the right spot, and fortunately that's where they naturally want to be anyway.

3. If where you put the anchor is a single thickness of sheet metal, you need to provide a reinforcement, just like you'd do on the floor for the front seat belt anchor points. IMO Julianos seat belt kits have the nicest reinforcement plates on the market. In fact you may want to call Julianos and discuss what you're doing.

Not a trivial job, but with some thought you can make it work right.

[nomadawhat]

Rodney

Have a look at johnonetrilion's post on the stock forum, where he recenlty posted about fitting 3 pointers front and rear in a 57 coupe. The rears in your 2 door post could be done the same way. The retractor is mounted behind the seat riser with a slot cut in the parcel shelf so the belt has a straight run at the slot. All mounting points have a plate to reinforce the mount, and if you want to you could always fit a larger reinforcing plate.

We also mounted another plate in the middle of the parcel shelf for a child restraint mount. John will be using lap belts for the center occupant, and will purchase a harness should a shoulder belt be needed for a third occupant - upper will mount to the child restraint mount and lower part of harness will use the lap belt.

John has more photos so send him a pm and he would be happy to send you some, or post some more on here.
Cheers, Des

[johnonetrillion]

Yep, send me a PM with your email address and I can send you some more pics.

[Rodney354]

Yep, send me a PM with your email address and I can send you some more pics.

PM Sent. Thanks for the help and replies everyone. I need all the help I can get in order to do this correctly. -Rodney