Seat belts with shoulder harness
 

I have a 65 Lemans that has front lap belts only. I'd like to put retractable shoulder harnesses on the front but I don't see an attachment point and don't know what's under the original factory headliner. I realize I'll likely have to replace the headliner if I proceed. I plan on moving the front lap belts to the back and have found some anchor adapters for the floor pan.

But I don't know how to do the upper mounting point for the shoulder harness. Re-painting the roof isn't an option at this time.

Dont know anything about these cars, but unless there is some kind of anchor point there to begin with (which I doubt) you probably should do some serious reinforcement before just bolting a retractor up there. If its not engineered properly it most likely wont be any better than a lap belt, not to mention the liability if you sell the car.

Not looking for legal advice.

I have a 64 GTO Convertible and a 64 hardtop race car.

Most of the race cars have the seat belts mounted near the seats, on the floor and to the roll cage, or in some similar.

That being said I wanted the across the chest belts to be properly mounted so, I went with later production Dodge Sebring
Convertible Seats with the chest belt built into the seat by the headrests. They work perfectly and are a lot safer vs the
stock 64 seat belts.

AND THE SEAT BACKS ARE RETAINED BY LOCKS AND DO NOT FLOP FORWARD WHEN YOU ARE MAKING A PANIC STOP.
Later 1966+ GTO seats had some sort of a lock but 64 seats did not.

So if a roof car you can figure out how to attach the upper belt so it copies the later factory seat belt mounting location.
But that still does not say it is as strong, in a stop, as a factory installation. But 4 seat belts are better than 2 seat belts.

Tom V.

That's some really good advice, thanks Tom and the convertible idea had not crossed my mind. I'm thinking attaching to the roof is likely not very do-able if I'm not ready to reinforce and weld. I still have the original paint job, and that will come last. I was thinking some racing style buckets that route the belts through holes in the seat. I love the factory buckets but they don't have headrests. I was thinking about installing some headrests but haven't found what I'm looking for yet. But I I did that maybe I could put some seat belt guides there as well and run 4 pt setup.
But they just put a new u-pull-it nearby so I'll check out the convertibles.

My 68 FB had a shoulder harness attached to the roof and held in place against the headliner with a clip until needed. I installed 3 point retractable. The retractor is beside the seat and the shoulder portion is attached to that point on the roof. Also I installed 3 point retractable in my 66Chevy II. For it to work I had to weld nuts in a roof bulkhead for the shoulder 'point'. The headliner had to be removed for that. Some older cars had those nuts in place in case someone added a 3 point option.

You can check other posts on 'shoulder belts" as there are several discussions here. GM added the roof reinforcement for shoulder belts in early 1966 calendar year for all A-body hardtops/coupes and sedans. perhaps they added them on all vehicles I don't know. The forum has some good photos of it along with the GM instructions to the dealers to add shoulder belts. There are also instructions to add shoulder belts to convertibles, which you could do instead of welding the reinforcement into the roof. In 1967 GM added the locking seat back, and I think when the government mandated shoulder belts headrests were added. So I would think you would probably need a seat with headrests and locking mechanism from the later model years if you wanted to keep the car all Pontiac.

Dot Mandated shoulder belts starting Jan 1, 1968. Many Gm cars had them optional before then. If your car was available with shoulder belts as an option, there will be reinforced area With a threaded hole. At that point you just need a pic of one with headliner out to get location.
Then I usually install Morris Concepts 3 point belt set up that works like new cars, easy swing over and click. Very safe.