Attaching Seat Belts

[smhaack63]

I'm needing advice on attaching co-pilot seat, seat belt and shoulder belt? Should I put a metal plate under plywood and and nut/bolt it the seat thru that? or Should the seat and belts be attached to a steel plate that is attached to the frame of the bus? What to attach shoulder harness?  Any ideas would be appreciated.

[kyle4501]

If you attach to plywood, you are now depending on the plywood & its fasteners to not fail.
Personally, I prefer to attach the seat belts to solid metal framing.

For the shoulder belt, I would use a carriage bolt thru the side of the coach - drill the hole thru a structural member. Any other method I can think of will look lots worse inside & not be as strong. . . .

YMMV

Good luck !

[buswarrior]

See the MCI crash test by NHTSA

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EFlGHxV5WsY

You aren't really worried about a crash like a car, you aren't surviving it...

From a practical standpoint, you want the seat fastened well enough that jumping on a reclined seat back won't tear out of the floor.

The forces transmitted to the occupants of a coach in a "regular" collision are a fraction of the forces on an auto passenger, the coach absorbs more of the force of collision, as it has more mass than an auto.

Drivers need to be belted, so they stay in the chair and at the controls, the recent Peter Pan crash into a house would not have happened, if the driver wasn't @$# over tea kettle down in the stairway...

http://www.gazettenet.com/Police-say-driver-error-to-blame-for-bus-crash-in-Granby-7413503

Put the belt on, not for crash protection, but to keep your sorry backside in the chair, so you can do something about your run-away coach!

happy coaching!
buswarrior

[Dave5Cs]

Ask John:316 to put it in. You will never get it out orrrrrr figure out how to remove the front seat either, Man

[Astro]

FWIW, I bolted my passenger seat to a 3/8" aluminum plate with G8 bolts through a 2"x4" aluminum frame placed over the front right wheelwell bolted through to framing with g8 shear rated bolts. Seatbelt was integral to seat. My passenger (wife) should survive. Me......not so sure although I did use good new bolts but not a lot of structure forward of driver. I also placed her aft of the original bulkhead (and me) for added safety and less yammering...

[Iceni John]

49 CFR 571.209 section (f) Attachment Hardware has some useful info:   https://www.law.cornell.edu/cfr/text/49/571.209

HTH, John

[Astro]

Yes, nice... 7/16" or 1/2"corrosion resistant high strength bolts, fine thread, plenty of thread penetration, at least 15mm edge margin, no burrs or sharp edges. Torque properly. Easy Peasy...

[lvmci]

hi smhaack, what type of bus do you have? it would help us if you put what year and model, as we all have.
if it is a MCI, there is a rail that the passenger seats were attached to below the seats and to the outside of the seats below the windows. for whatever year and model, those rails were designed for crash worthiness, why not attach it to those rails and use the design that was tested by engineers and govt for crash worthiness.
 I got seats from a minivan, that the seat belts were attached to the chair frame, then the chair clipped on to a bracket that was mounted to those rails. lvmci...

[smhaack63]

hi smhaack, what type of bus do you have? it would help us if you put what year and model, as we all have.
if it is a MCI, there is a rail that the passenger seats were attached to below the seats and to the outside of the seats below the windows. for whatever year and model, those rails were designed for crash worthiness, why not attach it to those rails and use the design that was tested by engineers and govt for crash worthiness.
 I got seats from a minivan, that the seat belts were attached to the chair frame, then the chair clipped on to a bracket that was mounted to those rails. lvmci...

Thanks for all the advice!
I have a 1980 MCI MC9.

[Tom Y]

If the walls are not covered weld a plate to hold at shoulder height and tap. I did this on both driver and co pilot seats 1/2" plate.

[Scott & Heather]

Another vote for not overthinking this. We've seen enough coach crash tests and accident photos to know that if we have any sort of major frontal collision we are goners. You want to keep yourself in your seat during hard braking and maybe a minor collision with a car or other quick stop. But overengineering the seat to stay bolted with steel plating etc is incidental.


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