Well, most of you may know im Australian, and our roadworthy requirements are different to the USA, which means a fair amount of mods for legal road use. One of these mods is the seatbelts. When i first got my 87, it was just landed here so it had everything in its original place (even the steering wheel!!) and i gotta say, i kinda like those original seatbelts. The reason we cant keep them is cause they dont inersia lock in the top half of the belt, which is a safety requirement here. So what id really like to know is, was there any model (of C4) that had an inersia locking top half? Or, can it be safely done to make them lock? What colours were available on the factory ones? Here is a pic where you can see the type i now have in my 94 (any ADR compliant ones will do,there are a few different makes)

 

Maybe the '87 was different, but my '88 has inertia lock belts.

If you slam on the brakes in my car, both the upper and lower belts will lock in place.

 

CasetheCorvetteMan:
Thats not serious is it? Your telling me the bastards are not happy with corvette seat belts????
It makes me bloody angry thinking about our laws here.
Converting cars to Right hand Drive makes me sick and I will never personally do it. I'll just have to be satisfied with pre 89. but if people want a later than 89 then they have no choice
So they think a car is safer after it has been hacked into and changed from its original factory design of which they spend years and years to design? NO! They just want to stop people importing cars, and make it extremely difficult to do so!


Apologies for my rant.
If c4 seatbelts are not ok, then c5 seat belts might be...or camaro. Im sure people will chime in.

(Nice looking vette )

 

The shoulder belts in my 1995 lock when I'm out hammering the snot out of it!

Mike

 

Bloody oath its serious mate yeah, And what's worse, take a bit of a look at where the buckle sits.... up alittle high to say the least, and when i had the 87 converted to RHD the buckles were about the same height, which is higher than the stock factory ones. Corvette QLD did the RHD conversion on my 87 and it was absolute top notch in every way which the guys there all know i expect a first class job for the money. In all honesty, id have rathered it stayed a lefty!! But here in QLD it would need to be 30 yrs or older.


Well this is a good thing to know, the bottom part locked when you pressed the "CINCH" button on both sides, neither side had the top piece lock AT ALL, and both were smooth as silk. Im interested in hearing from a few more people about the proper function of it all.
Thanks for your input mate

 

Thanks Mike
Well thats 2 from 2 which is good enough for me!! Whats a set normally worth for a coupe? What kind of colours can be had?

 

I can't help you there, so I'll give you a bump to the top!

 

AFAIK there are to main ways to lock the belts.
1) a little weight that moves during sudden g-force application which pushes the locking teeth up.
2) centripital weights that push the teeth out to engage when the belt spool spins above a specific rpm.

I wonder which is illegal?

I am not familiar with how the 'active' seatbelts work, but it sounds like that isn't the dispute here.

Can you have/do you want solidly mounted belts and are they legal? I like my Schroth belts that I've used, if that would qualify.
»keith

 

Youre a bloody good man

 

Took me about 5 minutes to figure out what the hell AFAIK was!! Im not up on all these abreviations you blokes use. Certainly dont want solid mounted belts, not sure if they are legal or not. I liked the fact that you had both with the factory belts by pressing the button on them.

 

sorry about the shorthand.

All windup seat belts have to lock in an accident, or they serve no purpose, but the above two ways I listed are the only two ways I'm aware of.

Now, some wind up belts have "tighteners" which can be a CO2 cartridge that tightens the seat belt in an accident, but I'm not sure if those are all that common.

And I've seen cars that have a door switch that triggers the wind up spring when the door is opened, but they still had a separate locking system, typically a lead weight swinging on pivot. That is part of a system that leaves a calculated amount of slack in the belts to make the driver "comfortable". Its one of the first things I disable, I like my belts --tight--.

Also, many newer cars have an auto-cinch mode of sorts on all but the driver's seat, but in the lap belt only. This is for baby car seats. You pull the belt all the way out, then as you let it in, it ratchets. It goes out of "cinch mode" by letting it wind all the way up, just like C4 belts do.

I got ride in a 2000 or so Camaro SS on a track, and I surprised the driver when I ratcheted the seat belt up cause he didn't know about that feature. He was disappointed when I told him that his seat belt probably can't do it.

Anyway, this thread has really piqued my interest.
»keith

 

Here is the statement from "Cor-vette Specs C4 1984-1996 Models" by Mike Antonick. This is listed in the "Motor Vehicle Manufacturers Association Specifications Summary 1987 Corvette - Revised September 1986 - page 3 of 4"

RESTRAINT SYSTEM

Active Restraint System: Standard
Active Restraint Type: 3-point seat belt system, motion sensitive or locking
Active restraint location: Driver and passenger seat

I can scan this if you like and E-mail it to you.

Have a good day!

 

OK, I never had a vehicle with that before. It could mean that it has a powered winding system that only activates in a accident
The standard systems that I'm used to, I am 99% sure are called "passive restraint".

I might have to take mine apart, now I'm even more curious. »keith

 

Well, found this on New Zealand's Safty **** site:

The pretensioners are what I was thinking when I read the word "active", but they also use "active" when describing air bags.

I did a quick search to see maybe what exactly they want in AU for seat belts, but I didn't find a clear picture. If nothing else, a local company like Hemco could help, although I imagine its not the cheapest route.

I thought tearing into my vette's belts to look at them and take pix, but its 30 deg F outside , so I probably won't get to it until next April.

This is also a bit much.
Regulations like that just burn me.

(edit) I just realized the true question you were asking(I'm a little slow ), and I guess I don't have the answer you're looking for. It also appears that even your 94 is a different belt from a US type belt, so it appears that it is unlikely that you will find a legal version of what you want.

As I see it, you have two options.
1) try to have custom belts made with as many of the features that you want, as they can legally give you.
2) put the minimum legal in you have to, and swap the stock stuff back in between inspections.

Aside from maybe cosmetic appearance, it sounds like you desire the lower belt buckle position and the optional "lockability"?
The belt buckle location would either need a custom length belt(looks like a cable?) to change it or moving of the mounting position
The lockability might have to be homebrewed, which if there is any type of built in system, which I'm sure there is, you just have to find a way to trigger it.
For a cheesy example, I drilled a 1" hole in the side of my seatbelt cover on my old suburban, I can put my finger in there and push the weight over and ratchet the belt up. If I get it tight enough, the tension on the belt holds it locked. I'm still working on a better idea, but it does work.

In my WS6, I have both the Schroth solid mounted 3 point harnesses, AND the factory wind-ups(no cinch button on those either, the corvette is the first time I saw that), so I can wear either one.

»keith

 

thats what Richard Petty said about the hans device that restrains the head during crashes and prevents basial skull fractures,what killed him incidentially.
put the safest thing you can get your hands on..NEVER USE ANY SAFETY SHORTCUTS

 

not sure what tripped your trigger, but, I guess I don't care. If I wanna be safe, I'll stay home.
»keith

 

Ok, Now i know my seatbelts are NOT original, and what i want in there is factory originals!! We only get inspected once to get the car on the road, then as long as it stays roadworthy, it doesnt get inspected again. It isnt a safety shortcut, its about factory original fit and function, as you will see in the picture i put up, my belt buckles sit up way too high to be comfortable and safe. In the event of an accident they will cause internal injury cause the lower section of the belt is up too high.

 

I've been doing more research, is this the new regulation, or a version of it that they do in AU? I got it off of NZ's website, but it could be the reason that your stock belts are not legal:

I believe they want a "webbing clamp" lockup instead of a "drum lockup", which is what the stock C4 would be. IMO(in my opinion), you're picking gnats off a frog's back as far as the effective difference is.

I guess the next question is, can you find the old style stock belts locally? I am not sure where the best source to buy them would be. Can I assume you still have the old belts in the 87, if you can keep them, you can put them back in l8er.

For how "important" seatbelts are, it sure is hard to find out real information on them, aside from imprecise information on how they should function.

I've been re-reading all the posts to see if I'm still on track. Since I have not seen your '87 belts, I should retract(bad pun, I know ) what I said about all wind ups locking. I cannot say that with certitude, but I really don't see the usefullness of a non-locking upper belt except to provide lip-service to a regulation. If, indeed, that is the only problem, perhaps, as suggested, a newer belt could be found to fit.

Still, I don't think my '96 belt buckle is that high up, and I don't think it looks like that, I might have to take some pix. Of course, I tend to sit closer to the dash so I can work the pedals harder and faster, which would make the buckle look lower.

(Edit) One other piece of information that I am having a hard time verifying, is I have found web sites indicating that "active" or "manual" belts are both possible on C4's. If that is true, you could have the "active" belts which may use a lock other than a mechanical "intertia" lock, while those cars with "manual" belts do not, which would mean that possibly that could be a source of legal belts.

man, what a mess. Sorry I can't help better, but I hope you can track down what you want.

»keith

 

Youre a bloody good bloke Keith, very useful info there mate!! The belts in the 87 were factory originals when i bought the car, and when it got converted, they were changed to simular to what you see there in my 94, which was converted before i bought it, so the belts were allready changed. The buckles you have are certainly different to mine, mine are not even GM at all.

P.S. in answer to the question regarding local availability, i just got out of hospital yesterday from hernia operation and im not allowed to drive for a week, so i cant go and see the Corvette dealer that converts the cars til next week, but i reckon they will have some (if not lots) of original seat belts there, unless they throw them out.