7ent has Retractable belts on sale and was thinking of installing them. Anyone do it before, is there enough room for the spring unit? Does it use existing hardpoints to mount? Anything weird or tricky about it or just remove old non-retractible and replace w/ new.
It should be just remove the old and replace with the new. Should use the existing mounts.
Wait. Your Mini currently has static seatbelts and you want to install retractable ones? That's gonna take some fiddling and/or engineering. The later Minis with retractable belts have special mounting holes and reinforcements for the bulky retractor unit that sits in the rear pockets.
are you looking for the front or back seats? what year is your Mini?
I installed retractable 3 point seat belts in the back seat, replacing the fixed lap belts.
Mine is an '82, and had but plates on the pillar that were not used from the factory, hiding behind the liner.
The units I have were installed for one season, and since removed.
i'm on this same step, but looking for rears, two static three points and one static lap. If anyone has used or is upgrading, I'd be interested. I don't have the area in the rear for retractable.
Without looking at a later model, they do have some gadgetry going on in the bins, HOWEVER, some spacers and large thick washers should make it work after drilling a hole for the bolt that holds the unit in place. If memory serves me I was missing some of a unit on one car and made the required spacer out of a piece of wood and reused the large washer on the front side. Otherwise any kind of impact and the belt would potentially rip right through the thin sheet metal. Now if you don't have the captive nuts on the B pillar and inner cill, then you are SOL.
Thanks for the comments everyone. I wanted to replace the front static belts since they are original to the car (Labels are still in Italian). Mostly just the clean up the look of the interior a bit.
Photos of the current static belt setup.
https://photos.app.goo.gl/GLJs6wnQQh3MMbFk2
1973 Innocenti Mini 1001 - non export.
The trick part is the retractable parts need to mount vertically or they don't work right.
Quote from: MiniDave on April 08, 2018, 02:43:57 PM
The trick part is the retractable parts need to mount vertically or they don't work right.
Trickier part is my Inno still has the plast door bins, so the stock position won't work at all. I'll see if the rear pockets have a mounting spot, otherwise i'll stay static belts.