The Stovebolt Site Forums The Shop Area General Truck Talk 1956 rear wraparound glass and 3-point harness mount

We’d like to put two 3-point harnesses in our 1956 3200. Our truck has the rear wraparound glass, which limits our options for where to locate the upper mounting brackets/bolts. I've attached a photo.

If you’ve successfully installed harnesses in a similar truck, I’d welcome any insight you can share - and I'd love to see a photo of your upper bracket placement.

Best wishes,
Scott

You will just have to put the shoulder strap anchor on that pillar. Shouldn't be much more difficult than a std window.

I have a 59 small window & installed one of these last year. It will fit yours as well but its very sensitive when putting it on. If you put it on like being in a modern car/truck it will lock. If putting it on very slowly annoys you ....I'd look for something different, maybe a factory one from the bone yard or ebay.... Just my 2 cents.....good luck.

https://www.classicparts.com/47-59-and-67-87-Shoulder-_-Lap-Belt-Black/productinfo/28-071/

I installed 3 point belts from Seat Belts Plus in a ‘52 5 window and installed a plate that they sell that goes in behind the pillar. I modified mine by grinding off one corner and bent another to fit the contour. I drilled the bolt hole then lowered the plate from above. You could try lowering it on a string from above. (make a big loop so you can cut it from above to remove it). Once I threaded the bolt and tightened the plate the the pillar, I pop riveted it in place so the belt could be removed in the future. The same process should work for yours.

Like Phil did above, you need a plate behind the mounting bolt to spread the load out, the bigger the plate, the better.

I think he knows about what parts are necessary. Just worried about the small area?

We don't know yet what he means by "limit his options". In this truck, you would fish it up from the bottom. No need to rivet.

Here's the way I did mine...

I used a stiff wire and taped the nut/plate to it pushing it up from the bottom. After you get the bolt started pull the wire out. If you remove the shoulder bolt at a later date you just need to repeat the install process again...no rivets were needed.

I drilled my hole 36" above the floor.

I used Juliano's Seat Belts for both of my '56 trucks and had them installed in less than 1-hour (small window cabs). You may need to trim the nut/plate to fit inside the smaller door post, just keep it a big as you can...surface area counts here!

Mike B

My reasoning was I knew I was going to remove them when I got around to painting the interior, so it was to make it easier. I used one pop rivet below the big hole so you don’t even see it.

You are right, it’s not needed. It sure does make it easier if you do ever have to remove it.

The thing about modern seatbelts in an old truck is that the seat frame attachment will fail. Cushions may not be fastened. This can cause major injury. The seat bolts/floor threads were not designed for todays possible "inertias". Many trucks do not have a lock on the seatback either. Probably better than nothing, but will be a hybrid system.

When I installed mine, I increased the bolts that fasten down the seat from 5/16” to 3/8” and upgraded them to grade 8. I also added a few more welds on the seat tracks where I thought they were lacking.

I know that they are not up to todays standard but at least I feel better riding in our truck.

Here is a link explaining how I installed them.
https://www.stovebolt.com/ubbthread...point-seat-belt-routing.html#Post1333066

Any chance you can fish the plate up the wall with 3M tape on the back of it? That stuff sticks to everything.

More than likely the inside has surface rust and I don’t think 3M double sided tape would work well under those circumstances.

I did my 55.5 bbw, I followed a link from Cletus I found doing a search here, worked great!

Thanks to everyone who offered advice. I’m curious if anyone reading this has done a successful install on a similar truck with the large rear window. We can fish the backing plate up from the bottom but it wants to rotate on the way up. We’ve drilled a pilot hole, and then a little bit bigger hole, where we want to mount the bolt and plate.

It looks like there is more than one piece of steel there and some of it is at a right angle to the surface we want to mount the plate on. Unless I’m mistaken this will prevent us from securing the mounting plate flush with the interior pillar.

I have attached a photo of the pilot hole but it doesn’t really show what I’m seeing beneath the surface. The other two photos are what I think our options are for mounting the backing plate: 1.) flush with the pillar (which we haven’t been able to make work yet ) or 2.) kind of wrapped behind the pillar, which would require a new hole. Again I would really like to hear from somebody who’s actually done this on a similar truck with the large rear window. Thanks!

I am sorry I cannot help you with the big window questions; my 56 has the small window. What I can offer is when I added my seatbelts, I used a yard stick from the bottom to place the backing plate and it worked great. Not sure, but I think the belt would not work as well if you mounted it facing forward.

Lee.

When the big window cab is stripped of all paint/primer we drill a hole at the height we want all the way through both the inner and outer metal skins. A 3/4 solid rod is drilled and threaded to 7/16 on the inner end and then welded to both the inner and outer sheet metal. Makes a very strong and invisible mount point but must be done before finish and paint work.

Have you thought about fishing a length of safety wire through the hole and using it to pull the backing plate into position? Holding it there may be a challenge while you attach it permanently. Would a Riv-Nut work in this situation? I have a small window cab and will be doing this before long so I'm interested in what you come up with.

NO, a Riv-nut would just pull out in a crash, there's not enough surface area to hold it in place.

If you make your own backing plate make sure you round all of the edges so it won't tear out of the door post.

Mike B

I thought I'd follow up in case others with the large rear window are thinking about doing the same thing. As near as I can tell, it's not at all practical to place the mounting plate where I drilled the hole above. There are too many layers of steel behind it to get the plate into place. Instead you have to go around the corner, even though this doesn't seem like the straightest route for the seatbelt to follow. We did both belts mounted in this position and they work well (see photo below). Now I just have to patch the exploratory hole on the other side and figure out where to store the jack, which was displaced by the seatbelt retractor. I hope this helps!

All things considered you made the mount look good. The window pillar is as you said multiple layers so it should give you the surface strength you need. Nice work, thanks for the follow up.