A previous owner cut the seatbelts out of my car so I replaced them with standard lap belts when I first purchased the car.
A couple of times I’ve forgotten to tuck them beside the seat upon exiting the vehicle which resulted in a couple of nicks to the door sills (ouch). I’d like to go original but I’m afraid they may be more than I’m willing to spend at this time. I’m thinking retractable belts may be the answer. Does anyone have any knowledge or thoughts on this? Did they even install retractable belts in 69?

 

None

 

Only the shoulder harness was retractable.

 

Do you the shoulder belts now or only lap belts? If you went OEM what is it that you need?

 

I installed aftermarket lap belts. No shoulder belts.

 

Do you have the headrests? You really should have headrests. All the mounting bolt holes should be there for the shoulder guides, for the seats there should be holes on each side of each seat. I think the question of the retractible shoulder belt holes has come up and I think the mountings are there too but you'd want to verify.

I sold my original belts a while back so can't help you with anything like that. But I have to say the factory setup with the retractible shoulders is the way to go. If you keep the seatbelt clip in with the shoulders it retracts the belt along with the shoulder strap. Plus the mechanism has an inertial reel brake so it is an easy pull to fasten the combo.

It is really worth seeking out. I would occasionally pull hard on the shoulder just to see that the brake was working. If you are at all handy with mechanicals it is pretty easy to rebuild the tensioning.

Last thing, if you can recover all of the hardware but the belts are crappy or the clips are all scratched up, there is a company called SnakeOyl (something like that) that will restore your setup to a pristine condition. They did mine but they are $$$$ pricy.

 

In 1969 most seat belts were just tucked away somewhere and never used.

 

This has been done and documented many times here. A search for shoulder belts install 69 will reveal days of reading material. Function or originality, the choice is yours.

 

Thanks. It looks like maybe my car never had the shoulder belts as there are no clips on the seat.

 

Possibly however as I’m sure you are aware your seats and headrests were recovered at some point. Maybe they were simply not reinstalled. More likely thought you never had them in your convertible as I’m pretty sure they were optional (for convertible) in 69.

 

The holes for the clips are in the frame. You may even be able to feel them.

 

This.
If your frames are indeed 69s there will be 2 raised, threaded bosses, on each side of the headrest. The 69 seat frames are the same on both driver and passenger sides. The bosses will be about 1 3/4" apart, about 1/4" tall and about 3/8" diameter. They are tapped for a machine thread screw. You should be able to feel them through the covers.

 

In case this helps anyone!

 

They only made 800 convertibles in 1969 with shoulder belts as they were optional on convertibles.
They were standard equipment on coupes.

 

May be difficult to find but I think I’m going to opt for the original lap/shoulder combo. I’d feel safer and I always like original when possible, I also like how they look. Thanks for all the input everyone!

 

You may need to search some of the Corvette Salvage Stores, if the restoration vendors don’t sell the parts you want. Good Hunting.

 

The hunt is most of the fun! Thanks again.