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Just curious and I know someone here will have the answer. Why is it that I've seen 66 seat belt buckles in both silver and black? Does it correlate with build date with black being the earlier and silver that latter?
The earliest would actually be interior color from what I have seen. Early 66's had the same buckle as the 65's and simply had the Chevrolet logo in the center with the buckle painted.
Yes, the early 66 buckles were the color of the seats (and belts) and in mid 66 changed to the style in the second picture.
Have fun and when you buckle up know you are safe.......lol...
Jack
The late mode seat belt is called a RCF-65 ("RCF" ... Fisher -65
The belt has a serious defect and would release under certain conditions. GM did not recall it and it was put into thousands of cars.
Interesting history
History of Seat Belts in the U.S.
Home Auto Defects Defective Seatbelts History Of Seat Belts In The U.S.
The use of seat belts in automobiles did not begin in earnest until the mid to late 1950's. Even then, seat belts were considered optional equipment. In 1955, famous actor James Dean died in a spectacular two-vehicle crash in the Southern California desert, which he likely would have survived had he been wearing a seat belt. History was made. The seat belt industry bloomed.
Probably more so than any other incident, the Dean crash launched a new period of public awareness about seat belt utilization in automobiles and their possible advantages.
In 1955, Swedish automaker Volvo was the first manufacturer to offer seat belt systems as standard equipment in its automobiles on a safety first theme. Volvo backed up its claims with a substantial amount of crash testing it independently performed during the 1950's which provided inescapable proof that use of a seat belt during an automobile accident would reduce both fatalities and serious injuries.
Video: In 1959 Volvo Engineers discuss the safety enhancements by adding seat belts to vehicles.
Although history shows a heightened public awareness about seat belt safety, in the United States some American automakers wanted to offer seat belts as optional equipment in their vehicle lines, few customers ordered seat belts and they were never made standard equipment in American cars until the mid 1960's.
New Regulations
In 1963, recognizing a mounting number casualties on the public roads and highways avoidable through seat belt usage, Congress made history and ordered that minimum federal standards be adopted for safety belts "so that passenger injuries in motor vehicle accidents can be kept to a minimum." (77 Stats. 361) One year later, the U.S. Commerce Department proposed and adopted a variety of regulations governing seat belt adoption, usage and testing which were largely adopted from standards which had previously been issued by the Society of Automotive Engineers ("SAE") (29 F.R. 12736, 16973).
These new regulations, posted at 15 C.F.R.. § 7, et seq. set forth a host of minimum requirements for manufacturers to follow governing the strengths and tolerances of seat belts, buckles, retractors and other restraint system components. In 1966, Congress passed the National Traffic and Motor Vehicle Safety Act, which formally established Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards ("FMVSS") providing minimum legally acceptable requirements for the manufacturing of vehicular components, including seat belts and seat belt buckles. This legislation also made the installation of seat belts mandatory by U.S. automakers.
Creating the Shoulder Belt System
In the late 1960's, heightened public safety concerns over the potential for a lap belt alone to produce serious lower extremity and abdominal injuries during a car accident (although perhaps preventing fatal injuries) prompted more regulatory changes to require the use of lap and shoulder belt systems. These integrated restraints are theoretically designed to distribute the accident-retraining forces of the belt system along the body rather than focusing them solely along the pelvis, raising the potential for abdominal injuries caused by the lap belt alone.
In the late 1970's, in an effort to compel a higher degree of public use of seat belt systems, the Federal Government required automakers to install automatic restraint systems, which involved the use of shoulder harnesses on rails and slots which would automatically slide into place when the occupant started the vehicle. However, these mechanically complicated systems were prone to substantial problems, and involved a manually-attached lap belt which many users failed to employ under the mistaken belief that they were automatically and fully restrained.
When these occupants were involved in accidents in which their automatic shoulder harness alone was in place, they were subjected to more serious injuries than they likely would have suffered had they been wearing only a lap belt. As a result, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration ("NHTSA") enacted regulations requiring placards to be placed on the automatic shoulder harness systems warning that they are not to be used without the lap belt. Due to these problems, the U.S. automakers manufacturers were permitted discontinue manufacture of these automatic shoulder restraint systems.
Air Bags
During the mid-1980's, while the automatic restraint systems were being troubleshot in production, crash research was leading to the conclusion that an inflatable air bag (often referred to as the SRS - supplemental, restraint system) could supplement vehicle occupant protection in an accident is used as a supplement to seat belts and shoulder harnesses.
Inclusion of these systems in new vehicles began to become mandatory in certain passenger vehicles the early 1990's and are being gradually phased in into other types of vehicles. Air bags, of course, also pose their own risks. Recent concern has arisen over the potential for air bags, during deployment, to cause serious life threatening injuries to certain occupants, such as small children and frail adults, during sudden air bags inflation. Nonetheless, air bags have greatly reduced the number of fatal and serious auto injuries in vehicular accidents, particularly in highway accidents involving greater speeds.
Seat Belt Buckle Evolution
The object of a seat belt buckle is to bring two ends of the seat belt together in a junction which will keep the two ends of the belt securely fastened to one another, particularly during the sudden and severe loads imposed during an accident - yet be easy for the occupant to fasten and unfasten in entering and existing the vehicle.
The first seat belt to be mass-produced for this purpose in American vehicles in the 1950's and early 1960's closely resembled the type of widely-recognized seat belt buckle still in use on Airliners today, called a "lift-cover" buckle. The restraint system would have a male tongue at one end with a hole or aperture in it, and would be inserted into the female buckle where a spring-loaded latch pin (called a pawl) would pass into the pawl and hold the tongue firmly into the buckle. The pin would be extracted when the user lifted up the hinged, spring-loaded buckle cover, releasing the pawl from the aperture in the tongue, allowing the tongue and buckle once again to separate.
Early after installation of these buckles, concern arose that the lift-cover could be accidentally dislodged by the occupant's motions inside the vehicle, leaving the user unrestrained in an accident.
In 1965, General Motors Corporation employee, Robert C. Fisher designed a buckle which operated similarly as the lift-cover buckle, but substituted a protected button on the side of the buckle for the lift-cover. This was the first major "side-release" or "top-release" style buckle used on American vehicles. The spring-loaded button would cause the pawl to span into the aperture when the tongue was fully inserted all of the way into the buckle. When the occupant wanted to disengage the tongue and buckle, (s)he would press the button and the pawl with be pushed out of the tongue's aperture, permitting separation of the tongue and buckle. The first of Fisher's designs was patented in 1965, and was called the RCF-65 ("RCF" standing for Robert C. Fisher) or "Maxi-Buckle."
In 1967, Fisher patented a smaller side-release buckle which operated identically to the RCF-65, which differed from the "Maxi-Buckle" only in respect to its miniaturization. This buckle became known as the "RCF-67" side-release buckle (also known as the Type I buckle in General Motors Vehicles). It remains the most numerous buckle installed in American vehicles to date. At the time of its initial conception, the RCF-67 was lightweight, simple in design, easy to manufacture, had few moving parts, was fairly durable, and therefore was relatively inexpensive to manufacture. It therefore became immediately popular with American automakers whom the government involuntarily compelled to make seat belts mandatory equipment in U.S. cars beginning in 1968.
In the early 1980's the American automakers and their buckle suppliers began a campaign to develop a set belt buckle with a tongue eject feature and a release push button on the end of the buckle, rather than on the side or top.
The initial generation of these tongue-eject feature buckles were side-release buckles. The first of these tongue-eject buckles used in production was manufactured by Hamill, a Division of Firestone (now TRW Vehicle Safety Systems) and was used as early as 1973 and 1974 Ford vehicles. Called a "diecast" buckle, the buckle looked remarkably similar to the RCF-67, but was made by Hamill pursuant to a Swiss patent which announced as its sole purpose, prevention of the danger of "false latching." This is discussed in further detail below. After two years, Ford went back to the RCF-67 solely to save money on the production costs of the buckle.
Yes, the early 66 buckles were the color of the seats (and belts) and in mid 66 changed to the style in the second picture.
Thanks! I should have mentioned I had black interior and interesting to see they matched interior color as well! Looks like the earlier models on the 66's were clip or pull up compared to the latter (silver) which were push button.
...I have the chrome buckle with the Bowtie on a black field. But the Bowtie is blue.
This isn't an impossible thing to do at home but it seems an unlikely detail for an owner to create himself...or are mine just out of another car?
Somewhere along the way I too thought they came with that blue bowtie emblem...I bought the car in '74 so figured what's on it is original--the little bowtie with raised silver chevrolet in it.
Somewhere along the way I too thought they came with that blue bowtie emblem...I bought the car in '74 so figured what's on it is original--the little bowtie with raised silver chevrolet in it.
02-28-2017, 12:55 AM
66 seat belt buckles
