12/6/02
Securing Seat Belts

The Northeast got walloped this week with snow, so I guess I won’t be driving my Ferrari anytime soon! Work slows to almost a standstill when I can’t pull it out of the garage!

I finally decided to order a set of seat belts from Andover Restraints down in Maryland. There’s only so much planning one can do without holding the actual assembly in you hand to see how it will fit in the car. I decided that I want to go with three point retractable seat belts in my car. I want three point belts because I don’t want to “eat” any of my mahogany steering wheel in a front end collision, nor do I want to pull my passenger’s teeth out of the leather dash when wearing only lap belts. I want retractable belts because the ones that I’ve used that are simply adjustable straps seem to always slip off your shoulder unless you’ve got them cinched up tight. When they’re tight, you can’t lean forward to reach the controls!

I wanted to piece together a retractable kit with a classic looking buckle. The retractable kits have modern looking buckles, but they also carry a buckles that are pictured above. They have chrome buckles, that are covered in protective tape. They sent me the parts except for the B pillar pivot. When I called them to find out what happened, they told me that they only had the pivots in their completed kit, but would look to see if they had any extras. So far, I haven’t heard from them. If worse comes to worse, I could probably find the pivot piece at a junkyard.

The Andover retractable mechanism has an inertial mechanism that locks when the belt is pulled too quickly. It hides under this ugly plastic cover. I bought one black belt so I can see how it works, and to work on the installation. If I like the way it turns out, I may order another set, or even buy two that match the color of the interior, but first I wanted to see what my mounting options were.

Luckily, François had a Series III GTE in his shop (It’s 4783 for those keeping track) for me to see how all this can fit.

Room in the rear foot wells is tight, so putting the reeler down there will take up some space.

It may also get scuffed up from the rear passenger’s shoes when they enter and exit the rear of the car.

Then I had a brainstorm! What if I could hide the reeler behind the rear door panel? That would be the coolest solution, but space is tight back there as well, and the exit point for the belt may interfere with the rear arm rest.

I’ll wait to hear from Andover to see what they have for the B pillar mounts, and keep thinking.

The Message board has been pretty active lately, and one question was on 275 GTB Dashboards, and what do I find sitting in François shop? A 275GTB Dashboard! Yes, it’s a Veneer, but what kind of wood is it? My guess is either Teak or Mahogany. With all the people viewing this site, there has to be a woodworker among us. Pleas go to the message board and help us out!

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