Steering wheel, and B post seat belt anchorage. Safety improvement without destroying character? Ideas appreciated.

[Leroy]

Hi,

Only my second (actually I just noticed that it's my third!! Whoopee!) post but I lurk on here and learn something new every day. Lots of great info.

Anyhoo, I have a '62 4door 948, fitted with inertia reel front seat belts . The Black Blowfly is in basically good nick, and with only a couple of other tiny mods like a screw on oil filter. Otherwise still original and that's what I want to keep..

I've read all that I could find in here about the problems of the upper seat belt anchor point position on the B post, and mine are fitted so low that the belt slides off my shoulder, and presumably wouldn't do much good keeping my chest/face off the steering wheel in a head-on collision. I don't have trafficators or an exterior slot for them, so fitting a long plate all the way down inside the B post to reinforce it would involve cutting into the post to get the plate in, holes to bolt it in securely, and drilling a new hole higher up to get the upper belt anchor into a better/safer position. Not an appetising concept to attack what I gather is already an inherently weak anchorage area, at least in the 4 door.

I haven't thought too hard about cutting into the B post from the inside to slide a long bracing plate in, but I suppose it's feasible and easily covered up with trim? But surely that would weaken the post anyway?

So an alternate approach is to perhaps try to reduce the risk of being harpooned by the non collapsing steering column, by fitting an aftermarket steering wheel, and I've heard mention of fitting a collapsible boss, but haven't got around to trying to track such an animal down yet.

I have read on here that the car's design makes it likely that in a head-on the steering column will either not move, or if really pushed back will rotate forwards away from the driver. Not sure I'd want to be too trusting about that... and even if it doesn't move backwards, the driver is still going to move forwards!

I have a standard original spoked wheel which I like very much indeed, and would hate to replace, but realise that if I hit something and instinctively braced against the wheel I'd not only still probably hit the column centre, but would just rip the rim off in a split second. It sure ain't designed to brace against.

And yes, I do realise that bracing is a sure recipe for ripping your shoulder joints apart, but it's something that almost everybody would do without thinking in a pending head-on, and at least in a relatively slow head-on it might stop you hitting the column centre, at the price of surgery to repair your shoulders.

A collapsible column would be a nice thing to have, but I'm not prepared to fit a modern column in an (almost) completely unmodified car (I've seen columns fitted from Mazdas etc in lots of modified Morries back in Oz, which is where I came from to live up here in Scutland, and didn't like the look at all, even though I had two fairly heavily modified (not the column, though) Morries myself many years ago).

So I'm asking for opinions from people who've looked for safety solutions and come up with either something a little better and safer than the lousy B post top anchor point I currently have, OR have fitted an aftermarket wheel that not only doesn't look wrong but may withstand a bit of bracing force if need be without collapsing, AND/OR have any experience with a collapsible boss (which doesn't fill me with any confidence, but anything might help).

Otherwise I'll just have to avoid hitting anything. So far, so good.....................

[philthehill]

The big problem with the Minor is that it was never designed for safety - it was designed for travelling in.

The fitment of safety belts was a complete afterthought and the factory incorporated anchorages fitted several years after production started using what was basically the standard bodyshell as at the start of Minor production Even the later Minor safety belt anchorages where little better.

I got round the problem of anchorages in the 1970s by using a three point safety belt with straps over both shoulders and a lap belt.
The shoulder straps came together and were anchored to the floor by an eye fitted to the car floor with large load spreading plates either side of the floor metal. The shoulder straps went to the anchorage between the seat back and the seat squab.

The lap belt was anchored at either end by eyes with again spread plates.

I also made sure that the seat could not tilt by placing a bolted bar across the seat leg loop and which was bolted to the floor.

The seat belts used were made by Delaney Gallay and were the full universal type.

https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=delan ... 80&bih=879

I personally would not attempt to modify the 'B' post as you could be making the problem worse.

The wheel is a different matter - what ever you do the steering column was and is not designed to act in an accident like a modern steering column does. If you want it to look standard you are going to have to accept the steering columns shortcomings.

[Leroy]

Thanks Philthehill,

You've got me thinking again. I'd hit a dead end re ideas.

The harness arrangement you came up with for your car and your link to the Delany Gallay seat belt images gave me some new ideas that had never occurred to me, so I'll certainly do a rethink about options. I do think the floor anchors for the shoulder straps they showed in their ads needed some major rethinking, though, as I wonder if the floor in any car would have been strong enough to take a massive upward pull, even if much more strongly reinforced than their tiny load spreading plates implied?

But a strong enough bar across the rear floor with L shaped ends that could be anchored to the driveshaft tunnel wall and sill to make the upward pull into a sideways pull might be OK?

I agree with your thoughts on the wheel options, and don't want a modern aftermarket wheel, but my reasoning was that a stronger wheel might give you a slightly better chance of avoiding/surviving major injury than the standard one which looks like it would snap like spaghetti.

My first Morrie (61 4 door) had the upper 3 point belt anchor fitted in an aftermarket arrangement that went right through the B post and was flattened out (but with not much overlap at all) on the outside of the post so it looked OK. This seemed a pretty universal arrangement in the Morries I saw back in Oz about 25 plus years ago, and usually the anchor was put in at an OK height. But I now recognise that it would probably have just ripped straight through the post in a decent crash as it barely covered the hole on the outside, even assuming the B post didn't bend or rip apart.

My second Morrie was a well and truly hotted up 61 pickup with a 1600 Datsun motor, Datsun gearbox, and all sorts of other mods. It was loud, and fast. I didn't even consider whether it was safe, because we just didn't consider such things back in those days. But I did fit full harness belts, not to be a whimp, but because I thought they looked cool. They were a pain to get into and out of, but they had ample scope for anchor points and I think they were pretty solid.

I'm going to investigate some kind of harness along the lines of what you described, maybe a variation on a Cooper S setup, as I assume that there may be something available for Mini (or MG?) competition that could work without being too complex or destructive, and reversible if needed.

So many thanks for your input.

Leroy (Lee, actually)

[philthehill]

Lee
The Delaney Gallay floor plates were too small and I did increase their size. I also made sure that the anchorages were placed as near as possible to angle changes of the floor pan so as to increase the rigidity of the mount. Whilst they were never tested I did make sure that the mounts were over engineered.

There are over both shoulder/lap belt harnesses available that look period.

Currently I am in the process of fitting a Willans six point harness which requires good strong mounts and I will not be using the 'B' post.
The seat is a light weight kevlar/fiberglass composite which has the necessary apertures in the back, sides and squab to allow for the six point fitment.

As regards the steering column on my Minor - it is just standard but lowered so no collapsible concessions there but the saving grace with the Minor steering is that the rack is mounted way back from the front of the car so any impact/kinetic energy on the front of the car has to travel through the wings, chassis legs and engine before the rack is pushed from its mounting position.
There is a school of thought that considers that if the rack is displaced rearwards the steering wheel will pivot upwards clear of the driver. I do not intend to find out if it does or not

Phil

[Monty-4]

Might I add that the later steering wheel - unspoked - may be safer than other wood covered metal aftermarket options. Being plastic/bakelite it is known to bend in an impact and is hopefully softer than one's skull. The same can't be said for wheels of metal construction.

On the topic of wheels - slightly smaller types from Minis fit although don't have the same dish. The Mk1 and Mk2s look almost identical to the later Minor one too. Minus the dish the rim is farther away from the driver so might be a little safer but it can interfere with the indicator stalk, although this can be bent away easily.

I vaguely recall talk of welding strengthening beams into doors on here a while back - a side impact is the type I feel most vulnerable to in a Minor. The low sill isn't going to give an ounce of protection against a fugly SUV type vehicle.

Also if you value your knees remove the front parcel shelf.

[Leroy]

Thanks Monty-4 and Phil,

I'm glad to hear that you upgraded the mounting plates Phil, as the ones illustrated were frightening. I'm also interested in your new projected mounting system, and will be checking it out via google, but when you get a chance, would you put up some pix on here to educate us? I think you'd have an interested audience.

Interesting thought about the later steering wheels M-4. A pity they aren't as attractive as the spoked ones, but worth thinking about rather than an aftermarket metal one. I hadn't considered that these might be TOO strong to be any safer.

Parcel shelf? Was the first thing I looked at, thought about very briefly, and threw out (well, I kept it as a template and in case anybody else inherits the blowfly and wants it back). Mine was warped and scungy, and the padding on the cross-beam that would do nothing to protect your knees was scabby and fell off. I'm not sure if my cross- beam was correctly fitted, but under that padding was a knife edge directed straight towards my knees. Scary. I don't remember any parcel shelves on my previous Oz Morries, and wonder whether I even had them fitted.

I do recall my similar experience with a Mini Moke I bought, new. My first new car after years of motorbikes and rusty wrecks of four wheelers, and I hated it from the outset, not least because the fuel tank filled with water every time it rained, and it was gutless. Being very aware of neck injuries at that time due to where I worked, I looked at the support brackets for the newly obligatory foam rubber head restraints. They were just foam pads with no internal bracing structure stuck on a thin flat steel plate welded onto the top bar of the flimsy seats. With the blade projecting FORWARDS into the back of the lower neck. In a rear ender it was instant spinal chop, if you weren't lucky enough to have the seat immediately collapse instead. My short term bodge fix was to cut most of that forward edge knife off, but that didn't make the actual head restraints any more functional.

Then I traded the Moke in on another set of wheels. It was one of my least ever faves of a car and I'm now up to a total of about 40. Most of them bangers.

After that enlightening experience I became a bit cynical about ad-hoc vehicle "safety" design, which back in those days mainly consisted of apparently glued/bodged/soldered or welded bits tacked onto the original structures to get past gradually improving regulations.

I guess making a Morrie safe enough to stop worrying is a foolish idea, and I don't ever recall anybody of my acquaintance dying in one or a similar vintage car in my youth, just bending them occasionally, and usually not bending them very much.

My main protective procedure will always have to be being more alert than the SUV drivers and suicidal trees jumping out in front of me. And over here in the wild west... the Audi drivers. Whatever happened to BMW drivers being the main risks to others on the road?

[King Kenny]

I vagally remember reading a long time ago that when collapsible steering columns became mandatory in the early 1979s the Morris Minor was exempt due to the contract BLMC had with the GPO. I also read that the Minor steering columns were sought after in India because the tube has the same diameter as a twelve bore shotgun.

[Monty-4]

I guess making a Morrie safe enough to stop worrying is a foolish idea, and I don't ever recall anybody of my acquaintance dying in one or a similar vintage car in my youth, just bending them occasionally, and usually not bending them very much.

My main protective procedure will always have to be being more alert than the SUV drivers and suicidal trees jumping out in front of me. And over here in the wild west... the Audi drivers. Whatever happened to BMW drivers being the main risks to others on the road?

Indeed, the best crash safety being prevention! A strategy at which one is at an advantage with a Minor with the superb visibility and general inability to do anything at high speeds.

I've been using my car as a daily driver since 2014 when I passed my test at 27 - some details/story here on another forum. The closest calls I've had were:

1. Deer running out in front of me at night, twice.
2. My own idiocy getting distracted and nearly running into the back of somebody.
3. A Merc running into the back of me at traffic lights, destroying his grille and bending my rear bumper very slightly.

Close calls with other drivers being foolish have been rare but situations that one can spot developing early enough to take pre-emptive action. One naturally pays more careful attention to those in black BMWs and Audis, can't think why.

Now if you'll excuse me I need to go and touch every available piece of wood in the house...

[jagnut66]

Hi,
I think this is a very important post, as the first thing many people buying Minors will miss is seat belts, if they have not been fitted.
What you buy and how you fit it are important considerations and there are a few options out there.
Basically I agree with most of the above and wherever you mount them make sure you reinforce that area.
I have installed a couple of thick plates each side to sit the reel on / mount it through, there is also a smaller plate welded under the car, so they should be level in the car and not pull through the floor, hopefully I'll never need to put this to the test though......
There is also a reinforcement plate welded on the underside where the buckles straps will bolt through the floor.
Someone seems to have drilled the correct sized hole in each pillar already, below where the trafficators attach, a couple of thick washers I have will add to the strength of the 'B' post here. I am happy with the height of the hole, in relation to the seat height and position, plus it means I can retain working trafficators!
I have also splashed out a very nice (new) inertia reel set up from quick fit, grey webbing and chrome buckles etc., so retaining the 'period' look.
I would love some BMC period Brittax stickers for the chromed buckles, unfortunately I can't find any at present but will keep looking.

DSCF3472.JPG (1.34 MiB) Viewed 2712 times

DSCF3473.JPG (773.76 KiB) Viewed 2712 times

DSCF3474.JPG (1.2 MiB) Viewed 2712 times

A bit untidy at present I know but then Sally is still a work in progress at the moment (I still have that awful bitumen like gunk, which just seems to trap damp between it and the metal floor, to scrape off the rest of the floor inside before I treat / paint it).
One point not mentioned above, which has been said before but which (I feel) should be stressed again, is NEVER buy secondhand seat belts out of a scrapyard, especially out of a crashed car, as they may well be no longer up to the job of protecting you in the event of an accident.

As to the steering wheel and column, you either like / want the standard look and accept its drawbacks or you replace it and loose the original look of the interior of your car. It is a decision only you can make.
As a side issue here I think you can get away with adding a few extra instruments, for example, oil pressure and water temperature gauges, without detracting from the look, so long as you add them in sympathy with the interior of your car.
You can get white faced gauges that sit well with the early white coloured (and later pale gold centrally mounted ones) speedometers and black faced ones for the last versions of the Minor.
Personally I'll be keeping my bakelite spoked wheel, as I prefer it to any of the replacement / modern options mentioned above.
Best wishes,
Mike.

[dp]

There are seats from other manufacturers which have seatbelts built in to the seat. I had R129 Mercedes SL seats in my Minor bolted to large reinforcements in the floor. But they left no room for rear passenger legs. Also the middle front seat of a Fiat multipla. All quite heavy so need a reinforced floor.

For the seatbelt mounting point, at one point I had a thick piece of metal about 6" with a hole at each end. One end was bolted to the original mounting point (of a 2 door) with a seatbelt bolt that allowed it to swivel. The other end had the actual seatbelt mounting bolted into it. The metal was flexible enough to bend rather then transfer all the load by levering the mounting point in an accident and had a bend at the bottom end so that it couldn't swivel too far one way or the other. Probably not the best solution but seemed to work.

[Leroy]

Reading all the above comments I've realised that one of my first jobs when the rain decides to stop up here in Haggisland is to finish my porrridge as early as I can after the sun gets up (joke. The sun doesn't get up till after lunch and goes down at afternoon tea time. And that only every second Sunday up here) and go and have a really, really close look at all of the mounting points in the Black Blowfly.

I was just hung up about the upper (B post) anchor, and vaguely assumed it was "properly" (if such a thing could ever be possible) fitted to the post. Just in a very silly place. And that the other points were probably as solid as could be expected.

Now that particular mislocation feature makes me suspect that somebody may have done a quick and dirty job of fitting the belts without any idea of the forces involved. Spanner out tomorrow to disassemble and check the metal thickness the bolts are in, weather permitting. No garage.....

I suspect my floor wouldn't take too much upward force. Soon after I bought it (definitely a "rust free" vehicle!!! Sound familiar?) I took it for an MOT to see what serious gremlins might be lurking 2 years after its last one. Lots of floor rust just inboard of the sills. Lurking quietly under the nice rustproof coating. Fail.

Fortunately a local Hungarian genius mechanic is not only a clever rust diviner and uncovered even more that the MOT tester had missed, but also a brilliant welder, and he had it looking mint in a few days, and it naturally passed a recheck back at the original tester with flying colours. I'd be looking at the sort of bracing plates Jagnut66 showed before I'd trust it for belt anchors now, though.

The existing steering wheel seems to have been given the nod for aesthetic appeal even if it fails the safety test, so it stays as my best option. The seat belts will be a continuing saga in the hope I can find a solution that's effective, safe, strong, and looks OK to me. Lots of good ideas provided, so thanks to all.

I agree with jagnut that many newbies buying an early unbelted car and wanting to fit them when no points are already in place should really do a lot of homework and get some serious advice before grabbing a drill and making holes in inappropriate places. And if the car does have anchor points factory fitted, check them carefully anyway.

[Chief]

"I would love some BMC period Brittax stickers for the chromed buckles, unfortunately I can't find any at present but will keep looking."

http://www.min-e-bitz.com//index.php?ma ... nr3ncn2uq4

Sadly they're not the same as my original BMC stickers which are disintegrating nicely, but maybe they're what you're after.

[jagnut66]

Sadly they're not the same as my original BMC stickers which are disintegrating nicely, but maybe they're what you're after

Many thanks!
They will do just nicely.
Best wishes,
Mike.

[Leroy]

I just went and checked my front belt anchor points in between 70mph gusts and swimming pool volumes of water dumps on a typical Scottie winter morning.

To my bemusement my belt reel is attached to the inside surface of the sill, rather than the floor, and when I jiggle it a bit, the entire organisation moves, as the sill bends. The sill has no real structural strength (I already knew that), so it seems a ridiculous place to mount it (I thought it was bolted to the floor, just hadn't looked closely), but somehow a captive nut, and one hopes a spreader plate, has been put inside it.

Meanwhile the upper anchor in the B post feels very solid, even though it's in a stupidly low location. And the anchor for the clip stalk is where it should be, in the side of the driveshaft tunnel. And the stalk is fitted so I'm expected to use the one on the driver side, rather than crossing over to the passenger side, as some people favour.

So I'm assuming my car probably received factory anchor fittings while being assembled, rather than captive nuts somehow how being placed there via a miniature Tardis, or someone cutting holes and invisibly sealing them up. Though I thought it was too early (in early '62) for mine to have had them done.

I'm accepting that my upper anchor will just have to do for now, and the stalk anchor is well placed for sideways pull.

But the reel anchor is frightening. The torque of a sudden and violent upward pull, assuming the lock does its job, would, I think, twist its bolt out of the sill.

I'm now going to investigate welding a reasonably thick flat bar across the underside of the floor behind the front seat to act as a very large load spreader, and investing in one of the many double over shoulder and lap harnesses available with 3 (converging shoulder straps to a single anchor) or 4 (slightly separated shoulder strap anchors) points. I may even splash out and do the same for the passenger side, though I don't envisage carrying many (my better fraction doesn't like riding in it or driving it. No accounting for taste, I guess)

[jagnut66]

Sadly they're not the same as my original BMC stickers which are disintegrating nicely, but maybe they're what you're after.

Arrived today from 'Min-e-bitz':

DSCF3475.JPG (324.8 KiB) Viewed 2552 times

I'm very pleased with them, they give the buckle a nice period look.
If I were to get more and fit them again I would trim a bit more of the silver edge off, a sharp pair of scissors is all you need, however once they're stuck it's too late (I could peel them back off but would probably ruin them in the process).
Not to worry though, I'm still very happy with them and at £6 inc. VAT and postage for the pair I think they're good value.
Best wishes,
Mike.

[SteveClem]

My ‘61 saloon and ‘55 A30 have never had belts fitted. I regularly agonise whether to butcher them and install a safety feature that must be of questionable value, given the the design and construction of the cars.
Must say, it feels naughty and oddly exhilarating to drive legally without belts. Bonkers, of course!

[dp]

To my bemusement my belt reel is attached to the inside surface of the sill, rather than the floor, and when I jiggle it a bit, the entire organisation moves, as the sill bends. The sill has no real structural strength (I already knew that), so it seems a ridiculous place to mount it (I thought it was bolted to the floor, just hadn't looked closely), but somehow a captive nut, and one hopes a spreader plate, has been put inside it.

My '67 Minor had a captive nut in the sill which I think was standard then. My '66 had no such fitting so perhaps it was introduced as standard at some point.

FWIW the sill should be very solid there as standard bending suggests a problem to be investigated

[jagnut66]

My ‘61 saloon and ‘55 A30 have never had belts fitted. I regularly agonise whether to butcher them and install a safety feature that must be of questionable value, given the the design and construction of the cars.
Must say, it feels naughty and oddly exhilarating to drive legally without belts. Bonkers, of course!

Mine needs refurbishment / welding and a respray anyway (sorry but I'm not into the 'Ratrod' look), so originality went out the window a while back......
Though with regards to seat belts I would fit them, without hesitation, as soon as possible, no matter how 'original' a car I'd just bought was. I don't fancy a flying lesson through the front windscreen at any point.
Best wishes,
Mike.

[ManyMinors]

Me too. It was the first thing I did to my 1958 Minor. I only have the old "static" belts but actually these, when properly adjusted, are a pretty good restraint and I feel much more secure in the car - especially when I view those early type sunvisors in line with my head
A 1961 car might even have the captive mountings already in the sills? I think they were introduced around that time.

[Sleeper]

" October 1961
Flashing direction indicators incorporated into front and rear lamps.
Semaphore type direction indicators discontinued.
Glove compartment lid removed.
Windscreen washers fitted on De Luxe models.
Seatbelts anchorage points built into all models.
New range of colours and upholstery offered
Two-door saloon #925555, four-door saloon #925448, Convertible #947088, Traveller #925679 "

John ;-)