Bucket Seats & Harness
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Do the harnesses have to be of a set standard or will "off the peg" or ebay ones fit the bill?
Cheers
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Remove the rear seatbelts aswell as the back seats though :)
depends were the harnesses are mounted to really as to how safe
its deemed by the MOT tester I guess.My old 205 used to have just buckets and harnesses (mounted to the seat mounts and rear beam mounts) and passed many an MOT like that. harnesses were just 3 point cheapo TRS jobbies.
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Many thanks
Will look into it, just need to find some decent seats & harnesses now, Oh, and to convince the wife, it will be a good idea too!
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Tell wife lightweight will save on petrol :D
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@6a4548f447=barrywhite21:
Tell wife lightweight will save on petrol :D
Tell her there's more room for shopping too ;) always does the trick :D
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Tell her there's more room for shopping too always does the trick
Would be a brilliant idea, apart from the fact we always use her car for shopping! a sensible, volvo estate! lol
gonna keep working on her though! (the wife not the car!)
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@3321fbef21=johnny:
Would be a brilliant idea, apart from the fact we always use her car for shopping! a sensible, volvo estate! lol
gonna keep working on her though! (the wife not the car!)
Aha, well how about looking at some really expensive 2 seat sports cars and saying you want one really badly but as a compromise you'll turn the MX3 into a 2 seat sports car to save money ;)
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@7a0faf9f8a=youdirtyfox:
depends were the harnesses are mounted to really as to how safe
its deemed by the MOT tester I guess.**The MoT won't test for belt safety or mounting. They'll just check presence and security of mounting. So if the harnesses are there - one per seat - and mounted securely, it'll pass an MoT.
However, you need to do it properly for your own safety. No-one will check this, so you can do it as badly and as cheaply as you like, but a badly mounted harness will not only not do its job in a crash, it will kill you in an accident.
This, as seen in a Nissan Micra, is not only cheap, but dangerous. I think you can see why:
This has two potential outcomes in a crash. Either the bolt shears - load should be perpendicular to the bolt, not parallel to it - and the driver goes through the screen, or the bolt holds and the harness becomes a noose and tears the driver's shoulders off. And it's not as rare as you might think.
Take note of the angles and mountings in this image:
Rear mounting no more than 10 degrees below horizontal with shoulder line, mounting bolt perpendicular to load application.
In order to achieve this in an MX-3, you're looking at either a rear strut brace or a bar welded in between the strut towers. But then you're good to go.
Oh, also, a 2-seat MX-3 has loads of space for shopping. I put £150 worth in the spare wheel well and once, and I shit you not, brought a full-sized shower bath home, entirely within the car with all doors and windows shut.**
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Harnesses on a daily driver to become a bit of a pain in the arse though after a while. If i was going buckets again i would use the standard belts :)
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**It would be worth leaving the seatbelts in and bolting the stock sockets to the side of the tunnel (in shear). Then you have the harnesses if you need them and the stock belts for road use and MoTs.
Plus they come out with 2 minutes' work if you have a serious weight-saving hard-on on track.**
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im on harnesses on my daily driver i think its ok
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@234de776a9=james:
im on harnesses on my daily driver i think its ok
**My elder brother (who uses an Atom as a daily) would agree, but it's horses for courses, really.
One thing I would recommend only using harnesses if your car is caged - stock belts will not prevent you smashing your head off it in an impact/rollover and you don't want to be first-on-scene at that accident. Otherwise, do it how you like - if you can live with harnesses (and you clearly can), put them in properly and ditch the stock belts. If, some days, you just want to get in, clunk-click and sod off, keep them - for the sake of 4 bolts each side to remove and twenty minutes' work under the car to put the sockets in, it's worth it.**
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@7d31dbb6e8=johnny:
Do the harnesses have to be of a set standard or will "off the peg" or ebay ones fit the bill?
CheersIf the seat belts are not E marked or BS stamped then its a fail. But then again it depends on whether or not the tester checks the labels.
And you can mount them on the ceiling for all a tester cares as long a they are fixed down and there is no corrosion or modification within 30cm that is going to decrease the strength then its a pass.
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Many thanks for all the advice.
Will sleep on it for a few weeks to decide the best way forward.
I had harnesses in one of my minis, and loved them and felt secure, however the boss (Mrs Johhny Mac) wasnt and still isnt too keen on them.Thanks again for all the advice.
