Seat belt shoulder strap holes

Discussion in 'Interior City' started by poiz87, Dec 20, 2019.

  1. poiz87

    poiz87 Well-Known Member

    I have a 66 skylark and plan to put a 3 point seat belt harness on the front seat driver/passenger sides. I found this old pic of the interior before I put the headliner in the car. Which of the holes circled in the photo are for the the shoulder harness? Would like to know before I start poking holes in my headliner. Or is this an early 1966 skylark and neither of the holes are fabricated for mounting a shoulder harness?

     
    Last edited: Dec 20, 2019
  2. wkillgs

    wkillgs Gold Level Contributor

    Buick added the shoulder belt reinforcements starting sometime around March 1966. There would be a small hole punched in the cowl data plate near the bottom edge if you car has them. I've posted a pic before, I'll see if I can find it.
     
  3. wkillgs

    wkillgs Gold Level Contributor

    I'm gonna say it's the holes circled in blue. If one of those has a nut on the back side, that's it. If there are no nuts it's likely an early build car.
     
  4. poiz87

    poiz87 Well-Known Member

    Thanks for the info - I think it's the blue circle also. I'll get into it tomorrow and find out for sure which mounting hole it is. Is there a way to find out which month my vehicle was made to see if it was post ~March 1966?
     
  5. JohnnyGS

    JohnnyGS Well-Known Member

    look at the cowl tag should say there. its the metal tag on the firewall in the motor compartment. drivers side
    mine says 09C which means 09 sept C third week
     

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  6. poiz87

    poiz87 Well-Known Member

    Awesome. I've got 04B - looks like mine was made just in time for the shoulder harness. Thanks Johnny.
     
  7. poiz87

    poiz87 Well-Known Member

    I see the hole on the data plate that you mentioned. Thanks again for the info. I'll get some before/after pics for reference, in case anyone else has these questions in the future.
     
  8. poiz87

    poiz87 Well-Known Member

    Took about half a day to get the seatbelts installed properly, with a trip to the hardware store for nuts, bolts, and washers. A brief explanation with some photos for anyone curious about their skylark seatbelt mounting positions for a 3 point harness.




    Looked at the old mounting holes for the lap belt and looked at the backseat quarter window post for the best mount position for the reel near the bottom of the floor. After feeling around the headliner, I found the mount hole for the top mount of the shoulder harness. It is the hole circle in blue from the original headliner-less image.





    After reading the install instructions, it was best to have the shoulder harness as straight as possible from the reel at the floor to the top bolt of the shoulder harness. I used some masking tape to mark off generally where that would be. Fortunately, the ash tray was in direct line of the shoulder strap, so I removed that and used it as the hole to route the strap through the arm rest of the back seat. I'll fabricate some plastic piece there to cover the gaps around the shoulder harness and make it look more professional. Hell, I'm not even sure if the back seat arm rest are the correct armrests for this 66 skylark.


    Where the reel meets the floor is the only portion that I had to drill through in order to mount the seat belt. I used half inch bolts, washers, and locknuts to mount the real on the rear quarter sheet metal between the quarter panel and the arm rest.


    I finished up and got great results. I feel much better knowing there is a certified 3-point shoulder harness seat belt in use which should prevent me from slamming into the steering wheel if I ever get in an accident. Once I completed the driver side first, the passenger side took less than an hour. All in all, $110 was spent on 2 sets of 3-point harnesses, with about $10 in nuts and bolts at the hardware store. I got the seat belts from JEGS as a restopart. Not exact replica, but good for the price and it looks like it's meant to be there.
     
  9. 455monte

    455monte Well-Known Member

    It would appear u only used 1 hole in the roof mount? Or is there an adapter plate added under the headliner added that u didnt take pic of?
    The factory used 2 small bolts there.
    As small as they were i would want to utilize both of em to distribute the load across 2 bolts instead of just 1.
    Seems like they were only 5/16?
    I have tested factory fixed shoulder belts in a crash.
    After the crash the driver shoulder strap was 1.5 inches longer than the pass side.
    But it did its job and kept me off the steering column.
    Those were gm belts utilizing the 2 small bolts in a 67 gs.
     
  10. poiz87

    poiz87 Well-Known Member

    As far as I could tell from the photo and me feeling around the headliner, there was only 1 hole in that section of the roof that had a threaded backing to it. Maybe since this is the first month of 1966 that made the shoulder strap harness option available, there was only 1 mounting hole?

    The instructions required 1 bolt for the roof mount and the roof mount didnt come with a bracket that would allow for a 2 bolt mount. Either way, using 2 bolts on an adapter at the roof mount would defeat its purpose once I secure it to the adapter with 1 bolt.

    It was a 5/16" bolt, which surprised me considering the lap belts all used 7/16" bolts. I'll look in to grade 8 bolts to make it a little more sturdy.
     
    Last edited: Dec 22, 2019
  11. 455monte

    455monte Well-Known Member

    If there was a 2 bolt adapter you could use a larger pivot point bolt with ur aftermarket kit.
    All the gm 3 point with retractors setups use a pretty large bolt when its a single setup like u currently have.
    I personally would not trust my life to a single 5/16 bolt especially since im a big guy.
    Be interesting to see if the company that makes that kit has a weight rating on them
     

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