seat belt mount spreader plates

[tvrgit]

These:



the seat belt reel bolts through the body on to these. Now I thought that the mountings were all rubber, but when I lifted the body earlier this week, all the rubber / plastic spacers were ok and reusable. The spacers behind this seat belt plate crumbled away to nothing (I mean that - flakes and powder!) so I suspect were meant to be metal. That would make some sense, to spread the seat belt load.

Question is, does anybody know what the original spec (ie thickness of metal, plastic, chocolate or whatever it was made of) of the spacer was? I don't mean the bracket itself, that's fine, I mean the spacer. I can make them up if I know what I'm making, but as I say there is nothing left of mine so I have no clue.

[Gerald-TVR]

As far as I can remember from dismantling the S2 and S3 all that was between the plate and the body was big rusty flakes of metal that had clearly come from the crumbling seatbelt mounting plate, there was rubber as well but i dont think there was an additional load spreading thing

Norman

[gifdy]

Same for me - I swept what was there into a dustpan I don't remember any rubber there but will check the pictures I took & the garage tonight.

[mep12345]

gifdy said:

Same for me - I swept what was there into a dustpan I don't remember any rubber there but will check the pictures I took & the garage tonight.

+ another one rubber padding and crumbling support bracket

[tvrgit]

I think my bracket is ok.



It seems to be the same thickness as the bottom part from the outrigger up, so I don't think it's rusted away much.

So the powdery crap I removed must have been plastic or rubber - although it did look to me more like badly rusted metal!

I'll make some new ones!

Thanks chaps.

[phillpot]

Probably due to TVRs prescision engineering mine had nothing the one side and about 6mm of rubber the other .

[Griffinr]

Will be lifting mine tomorrow if it doesnt rain too much but have already removed the belts once and found only rust and powder coat under the brackets which are now very thin. I have obtained a length of 75mm x 3mm thk steel flat to make new ones. Seems logical that some would have been packed on build as TVR are not known for tight tolerencing and you would not want to leave a dirt trap.

Rob.

[Barkychoc]

mine had rubber packing pieces between the body and horizontal part of the bracket and also between the vertical part to the inside of the wheelarch (so behind the seatbelt reel).
I think the number of bits of rubber determines the 'adjustment' of the body to chassis fitting.

[tvrgit]

Barkychoc said:

mine had rubber packing pieces between the body and horizontal part of the bracket and also between the vertical part to the inside of the wheelarch (so behind the seatbelt reel).
I think the number of bits of rubber determines the 'adjustment' of the body to chassis fitting.

I've got all the rest of the rubber bits, it's those vertical bits. I don't know how many bits there were - I know there are now 25 million and they're all granule shaped.

I've got pics though, especially older ones from 7 years ago that show it was about 1/4 of an inch - I'll chop up a carpet mat!

[Griffinr]

Lifted the body on mine today and the seat belt mount spreader plates are now very thin so will probably replace them. I got some 75 x 3 steel flat for this purpose. I am thinking of bending it up as an angle and using the 12mm body fixing bolt to hold it instead of welding as this will allow a bit more adjustment and should be just as strong.

Rob

[spludge]

tvrgit said:

Question is, does anybody know what the original spec (ie thickness of metal, plastic, chocolate or whatever it was made of) of the spacer was? I don't mean the bracket itself, that's fine, I mean the spacer. I can make them up if I know what I'm making, but as I say there is nothing left of mine so I have no clue.

There were some metal spacers in there on mine. Probably unfinished mild steel which had rusted away. When I dropped the body down I checked the gap after aligning the two 12mm bolts and made up some new ones to suit, 2mm steel I think.

K