How to mount a seat belt retractor?

[belfert]

My Dina has a full three point seat belt.  The retractor is mounted to the partition behind the driver.  (The partition is welded solidly to the floor and wall.)

How can I mount the retractor to the wall instead so I can remove the partition?  The hoop or whatever you call it is mounted into a threded hole in the side frame.  Can I weld a threaded slug into the frame below the hoop somewhere?  I have no idea what the threaded slug I am thinking of is really called.  I couldn't find one on McMaster-Carr.

The partition needs to come out because it restricts movement of the driver's seat.  The Bostrom seat I originally put in didn't have any issues, but I burned up the Bostrom seat and put in a Seats Inc seat that needs to move back further to be comfortable.

[bevans6]

You need to create a strong mount.  The seatbelt mounts in cars and trucks are deceptive.  They normally include a doubler to spread the load along the sheet metal of the body, and a bung welded in from behind (easy before the car is built!).  With a bus, you need to understand the chassis and framing so that you pick up strong points in the frame, and create a strong point-load mount for the actual bolt.  One thing I have thought of is fabricating a bar that picks up at the floor, tied into the frame somehow, and runs up to shoulder height along the wall, tied in to the chassis up high somehow.  With two strong mounts into the bus chassis, you could then tie in both the shoulder and lap belt mounts and have a good system.  this would kind of be like a little piece of a roll cage in a race car.

Oh - a threaded slug is called a bung in race car talk...   

Brian

[belfert]

It may also be possible to just leave the original seat belt retractor mount point after the rest of the partition is removed.  I won't know until after I remove the fiberglass covering on the partition.

[belfert]

I finally got the partition behind the driver ripped down to the metal framework.  It will be possible to remove most of the metal framework and still leave the seatbelt mount intact.

I'm glad I finally broke down and bought a corded sawzall.  It will come in handy to remove the metal framework.  My cordless sawzall lasts maybe 5 minutes on a charge.  (Found a brand new made in the USA Milwaukee Sawzall for $75 on CL.)