How do you retain the use of the stock seat belt clip when it is part of the stock seat? Do you remove it from the stock seat and then attach it to the new racing seat? This question is for both reclinable and non-reclinable racing seats.

That's what I did. The belt clip complete with pyrotechnic tensioner lead is bolted to the side of the seat mount bracket. Basically the only thing that was nice about the silly Corbeau brackets...

I have reclining seats and it was tricky getting brackets to fit. The seat back adjusters changed the side profile of the seat. I ended up making my own, super low and realigned with the steering wheel, with provisions for eye bolts for my harness.

Since the seat belt assembly originally is attached to the frame of the seat and slides with the seat, it helps to move the seat to a comfortable position before you determin where to attach the anchor point.

TCkline makes recaro brackets that use bottom mount sliders. but they were not low enough for my taste so I decided to make my own.

mike

That's what I did, yes. Because of clearance issues with my homemade brackets, I had to swap the stock clickers from passenger to driver side. I went to a couple junkyards, but there weren't any comparable E36s there to yank latches out of. Ran out of time ... honestly I would have preferred to find other latches, because I put the (heated) stock seats back in for the winter.

I wound up unbolting the seat belt clip for the rear middle seat and attaching at the rear floor bolt for the front seat. It was a little short, but useable. Then I realized the the MOMO seat I bought has a bolt in the side for a harness mount, so I just bolted the rear seat clip there. Works great.

At first, I did the same thing as Kos-motate139 - just bolted the whole tensioner assembly (mine was a spring loaded one, not the pyrotechnic one) to the tab on my TCKline brackets. But that put the latch way too high, and also put the seat belt sensor wire in a position where it got chopped in half when I slid the seat around.

I ended up opening up the tensioner assembly (since it was pretty much useless anyway), and taking out just the buckle assembly. Bolted a small piece of bar stock to the seat bracket, then bolted the buckle assembly to the bar stock, to get exactly the right height. Spliced the sensor wire back together, hooked it all up, and it works just fine...

Jim

Jim,

How difficult/dangerous was it to open up the assembly? I have the spring tensioner too, but was hessitant to opening it up and having it unwind and remove fingers and such... is it as simple as prying it open?

mike

I dunno - I just got a saw, and carefully cut through the plastic right in front of the piece that goes up, where the seat belt buckle is. Cut on the side that's away from the seat when the thing is mounted. Then I used a screwdriver to pry apart the back part of the plastic case, removing the cover of the piece that goes up to the seat belt buckle. The saw cut allows that piece to be removed, without removing the cover over the spring mechanism.

Or, I guess if you wanted to, you could pull the trigger that's sticking out, releasing the spring. Then take apart the whole mess.

Just remember, if you lose a finger or a spring shoots out and hits you in the eye, it's not my problem....you do this all at your own risk...

Jim

Thanks Jim,

I was thinking of the same thing when I first looked at it. I just wasnt sure of the mechanism and how it was triggered so I held off.

The assembly fits my bracket version I fine, although I'm about to make new brackets and clean up the design a bit from the prototype soon... I'm also debating on leaving SRD's for EVO's.

mike