Re:Driver's side seatbelt bol

[Jim Adney <jadney@vwtype3.org>]

On 9 Oct 2005 at 21:25, Dave Sanderson wrote:

> Yes, the sill on the driver's side is different from the passenger  
> side. On the passenger side there is a threaded hole for a seatbelt  
> bolt but there is not one on the driver's side/ So I plan to ct open  
> the driver's side and weld in a plate wth the threaded hole for a  
> bolt.. But it occurred to me that perhaps the driver's side was  
> different and since we have not seen too many of these cars ... well  
> it seemed a good question. So tomorrow I'll cut open the channel and  
> weld in a piece of steels as a backing plate.

It was clear from your first post that your two sides were different, it just 
wasn't clear why this was so. I'm afraid this still isn't clear. I've never 
heard of a car where the anchors were different from one side to the other.

>From out here, our best guess is that you've welded up pieces from different 
years to make a repair pan. The usual anchor is a stamped plate about 6" long 
and 2" wide with the anchor at one end. I don't know any good way to install a 
replacement after the fact. I don't think there's enough room inside there to 
expect a suitable plate to slip in a small hole at an angle and then slide into 
position. If you cut a large hole, that's going to severely weaken the part.

I guess you could cut out a large section, weld a plate to it's backside, and 
then weld the whole plate back in. 

Try feeling thru the threaded hole on the passenger side to get an idea of the 
clearance behind the anchor plate. I'll bet there's hardly any.

Whatever you do, be careful when cutting, that you don't cut thru more layers 
than you need to. There are a LOT of layers in there! It might be better to do 
this with a hand grinder and a cutoff wheel. That would give you better control 
over the cutting depth.


-- 
Jim Adney
jadney@vwtype3.org
Madison, WI 53711-3054
USA

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