Morris Minor Owners Club

Hi

I need to fit a seatbelt to my 1957 morris minor. I believe my car has no mounts at all for a seatbelt to be fitted. I want to secure a baby seat in my car so need to find a way of doing this. I did think about ratchet strapping the baby seat to the car seat

I'm guessing I would have to secure the front seat to the floor to stop it lifting in a accident.

Thanks in advance

My baby seat is compatible with a lap belt. Its probably easier to fit a rear lap belt for securing the baby seat in.

The back seat is not suitable fotr attaching anything - it folds forwards. And yes - if using a front seat I would certainly be bolting it down solidly.

Hi Roy

Surely if a lap belt was installed, wouldn't that stop the rear seat moving?

For what it is worth the Minor is totally unsuitable for fitting a baby seat to either front or rear seat - non of the seat belt fixings are approved for restraining a baby seat and personally I would not want to subject my grandchildren to the possibility of injury by using a non approved baby seat fixing.
I know that people have fitted baby seats in Minors but have they been tested under accident conditions and passed as suitable?
My advice is to keep well away from well intentioned fittings / fitment as you will never forgive yourself if it all goes wrong.
If you need to transport young children in a car get a modern one with approved seat belt fittings.
Phil

With a lap belt the rear seat will still fold forwards - absolutely no use. Heed Phil's warnings....... And remember the Minor has no 'crashworthy' structure or burst proof doors - as we are used to in modern cars......

my effort
http://www.mmoc.org.uk/viewtopic.php?f= ... 40#p318940



http://www.mmoc.org.uk/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=43231

Aren't we all thinking about trying to make inherently unsafe cars ( as judged by modern standards) a little less unsafe?
Surely part of the fun of driving a classic is the slightly 'naughty boy ' thing?
I really enjoy driving my A30 ...no seatbelts or any other protection. And legal! Like having a sly fag behind the school bike sheds in 1969
Mind you, I wouldn't take my grandchildren out in it.

Exactly - you can do what you wish with your own life - but with kiddies in the car? I don't think so...

Boris minor has inertia reel belts in the rear, inertia unit is bolted through the parcel shelf with spread plates and the other mount is through the inner wheel arch again with spread plates behind. The buckle is bolted through the floorpan again with spreader plates and comes up between the upper and lower seat sections. I would trust this to be safe in all but a very major smash.
On a slightly different note I remember the fun I had being in the back of a morris minor van with no seat let alone flippin seat belts sliding all over the place !!!!! and as i'm typing this I must have survived it.
Please don't take this the wrong way but I do find it strange for members to say that it's not a safe car to carry children.
No car is 100% safe in all situations to carry anybody anywhere at anytime including modern rubbish.

I agree with mrIan, as long as a decent set of belts is bolted in securely I wouldn't dream of denying my children the pleasure of a ride in the Morris. When we first got the car it had no rear belts & they were very disappointed when I said I was going to fit belts for them to wear. I would never intentionally put my children in danger (hence the fitting of the belts) but as said above we all did it (and worse) and most of us are still here to tell the tale.
Seat belts, cycle helmets, antibiotic handgels weren't invented when we were kids but we got by!

It's tricky this. I agree that it's a shame to deny children the joy of traveling in a classic car,but if it all goes wrong could you live with yourself? Notwithstanding any sensible changes we make to them,these machines were designed for a lower speed era. None would even get close to current safety standards,either for passengers or pedestrians.
I suspect that the law allows us to continue using them because they represent a very small statistical risk and they are much loved by most people. Everyone looks and waves as we pass...isn't it great.

I do see what you're saying but bicycles were first intended for use on the road in a very different and slower era, even before cars were invented and yet almost every family in the country allows there child to go out cycling, even encourages it.

Would you feel guilty if someone got injured in your new car 'A' because it didn't have as good a crash test as new car 'B' ?
Where will it end.
It's getting like the food tins that have dates on and people just throw them away because it's a week past the best before.
Keep up the non safety issues on classics and i'm dam sure the powers that be would be more than happy to insist on 100% certified seat belts and side impact bars or a complete ban on passengers etc etc for road use rendering most classics not roadworthy, as the powers that be do have a say in what you have to comply with to drive your vehicle legally on the road.

The OP here was intending relying on the folding rear seat - which is clearly NOT safe. If installed as mentioned above with spreader plates and so on (and NOT 'lap' belts) -I 'm sure the belts themselves are safe enough. We simply warn that these cars are not to modern safety standards. Don't want anyone getting hurt - or standing up in Court saying 'the MMOC Forum said it would be safe'.... Frankly - my own daughter was horrified the day I turned up at school to collect her in my Traveller - the shame of it! And she would never go anywhere in it.

Its interesting to see the range of views on this subject. I myself have fitted rear seat belts, and proudly bought both my daughters home from hospital following birth in mine.

I understand a minor is not going to be as safe as a modern car, but correctly installed seat belts surly must close this gap. All the major minor parts suppliers will sell seat belts, but few if any offer firm advice on how to fit them correctly, so its down to the judgement of the fitter to ensure these are adequate.

Surely as a club we could do something about this? Could we not get an automotive engineer to correctly design and specify seat belt mounts, detailing what modification are required to provide suitable restraint in the event of a crash? I would envisage this being in the form of structural calculations, then detailing what plates/modifications are required. This would be of benefit to all members.

Any thoughts?

I didn't travel with my children in the car when they were infants ie. in a rearwards facing capsule. mainly because the caspsule touched the front seats which is apparently a no-no. Once they were old enough to sit up, I installed lap-sash inertia reel seat belts using spreader plates as described previously. I put the seats in and took the car to an organisation here called KidSafe (I don't know what the equivalent would be in the UK) to be inspected and to make any adjustments deemed necessary. I have to add that the AS/NZS (Australia/New Zealand Standards) are unbelievably high in relation to child safety and the seats and installation were compliant.
The bloke doing the inspection said there is absolutuely no reason why a properly installed and compliant child restraint could not be used in a moggy. I have done thousands of miles with my kids in the car both in town and out in the bush without incident.
My earliest memories are of riding around in the back seat of my mums moggy sitting on a booster seat with a lap sash, so we have come a long way.

Although I tend to follow a risk taking profile personally (motorcycling, cycling, Morris driving and contradicting the wife) the "never harmed us" lobby should remember that the various nanny state changes since our cars were in their heyday have contributed to a dramatic improvement in road safety. In 1966 there were over 8,000 UK road deaths. In 2012 (latest statistic to hand) this had reduced to 1,754. The reduction is even more dramatic when you consider the increased number of vehicles on the road - in 1938 314 deaths per 100 million kilometres, in 2012 this dropped to 41.

Mark

While the number of accidents and deaths has dropped its very unbalanced to say this is all down to car design. In the 60'S there were no central barrier on motorways for instance. If a car veered onto the other carriage way you have a potential 140 mphhead on crash on your hands. I have no doubt the result would be similar today in a modern car compared to cars in the 60's.

Roads have been improved in so many areas since this time along wih driving standards.

MOT's have been introduced and enforced taken dangerous cars off the road.

These sort of road improvments have made a massive difference- car design has surely only been one factor that has led to he improvements?

That said I think it would still be sensible to get some correctly designed anchorage points for seat belts in minors

Certainly would be unbalanced to attribute it all to car design - but I didn't! I was attempting to comment that although some people, and me at times, hark back to the good old days of simplicity, the cumulative effect of many changes has been extremely beneficial. I suspect drink driving laws and seatbelts are the main contributors to the improvement, but road design, especially motorways, is also important.