[Squidward]

I thought I would share my seatbelt install.

I got my 67 Bird back on the road a few weeks back, and it definitely needed a seatbelt upgrade. The only seatbelts I had for the front were the crappy aftermarket lap belts that had been installed by the PO.

After getting clobbered last year in a car accident and breaking my neck (I was wearing a 3 point seatbelt), I have a new appreciation for improved safety features. I thought about going the route of a 5 point harness, but that would have deviated my car too far from street ride. Concerning aftermarket vs. factory appearing belts: I had no problems with a "stock-ish" appearance, since this a resto-mod with the intent of maintaining a mostly stock appearance. Besides, 3 point retractor belts weren't even available in 67, so I won't be fooling anyone with a claim of originality. And the price difference was huge. I'm into the entire front seat 3 point upgrade for about $120 total.

I found a set of 3 point retractable seatbelts. They are made by Allstar Performance, and were available for about $53 each on Amazon. Part # is 98115 for the black ones.

Included in each unit is the retractor, ceiling mount loop, female receiver, and bolt hardware. The included hardware is 7/16-20 bolts and lockwashers.

Instructions were pretty easy. I thought I would have to weld in some bracing for the upper loop on the roof. When I peeled back the headliner I found the factory mounting point for what I assume is an optional shoulder harness (the crappy fold up and put-away ones that NOBODY liked to mess with). See the first attached pic.

The center hole was almost the same size as the 7/16-20 shouldered bolt for the upper loop, so I used a same sized tap to ream open/thread the hole. I sanded the area in preperation for welding. I then took a 7/16-20 hex nut (not included with belts), threaded it onto a bolt, and threaded the bolt into the hole until the nut was flush on the mounting surface.

At this point I welded the nut to the inner roof structure. Since I found out I was out of MIG gas, I used flux core. It turned out OK since the metal here was thicker than standard sheetmetal, but I did blow through once because I slipped and started feeding the wire into the base metal instead of the side of the steel nut. I cleaned things up with a wire brush, and chased the threads with the tap. See second attached pic.

The instructions tell you to mount the retractor to the floor directly beneath the ceiling loop, so I hung the belt/retractor from the ceiling loop and let it drop vertically for a rough mounting point. This mounting point ended up being about 11 1/8" rearward from the factory belt anchor hole. This should provide a fairly straight shot from the retractor up to the ceiling loop, and also be far enough forward to avoid interference with the rear seat (I hope - or else I'll have to cut/redrill/weld again!). I repeated the same process of welding a nut to this surface so that it would have a firm mounting point. See third attached pic.

I had to weld the nut in both places because there would have been nothing for the mounting bolt to grab hold of. There wasn't really enough room to stick the nut behind the ceiling metal, and the floor mount for the retractor went into a blind void inside of the rocker. See fourth attached pic for a view of the mounted retractor.

The belt anchored at the factory outboard mount hole (requires 7/16-14 bolt), fed up through the newly mounted ceiling loop, and into the floor mounted retractor. The female receiver bolted to the factory bolt hole that also has a 7/16-14 thread. See the fifth attached pic for a final assembled view. Please forgive my rough ratty interior - it's a work in progress, and it's a slow going process as I drive it.

Some items to note: Welding the nut to the ceiling will cause a decent amount of heat, and will most likely damage your headliner unless you take some pretty serious measures to pull it away and/or protect it. Mine was the original, and while in surprisingly serviceable shape, it had 1-2 small tears in it already that would necessitate replacement. While you are at it, be sure to cover up or remove any other interior pieces that you wish to protect from flaming weld residue. Removing the seats entirely might be a wise choice if you don't have upholstery already destined for the trashcan.

All things considered, the belts are good quality, a great price, have soft belt webbing, and took only a few hours to install. I am pleased.