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MG Midget and Sprite Technical - Seat Belt Fixing Points

I am fitting some retracting seat belts to the Sprite and note the the threaded bosses in my Heritage shell are blind and long bolts bottom out. This is an excellent feature since the threads will not pick up moisture and rust. I have had trouble removing seat belts in the past because of severe rust in the bottom few threads of the fixing bolts where they had protuded into the wheel arch. I am wondering if original late shells with mounting points also had blind fixing points or was this an improvement the heritage engineers thought up?

On the down side I now have to saw off about 1/2" from the bolts that came with the fitting kit. Note I will be using a hacksaw rather than an angle grinder - keeps my aged joint moving!

As an after thought I could allways pack out the long bolts with lots of washers or even slip a large nut over the threads!


Jan T
J Targosz

I believe the bosses where blind inside the wheel arch , they were on my ‘71 car .
Mike Fairclough

Jan, if you have carpets and sound deadening, then you may need to use washers or spacers anyway?
GuyW

Definitely the wheel arch seatbelt bushes are blind in my '66 Sprite too. And there's a solid spacer, plus a soft spring washer to stop the rattle from the seatbelt end.

Interestingly, there isn't an exploded diagram in any of my books.

Pictures, -- a thousand words.

anamnesis

Thus.






anamnesis

I have used two spacers at the sill end. One stepped and the other about 1/2" long. The belt bracket needs to rotate here and needs good carpet clearance. There is a single spacer at the tunnel with the stalk bolted up firmly. There is a stub on the wheel well, poking throught the carpet, so no spacer needed.

If you have a shell fitted with the necessary threaded attachment points I don't think a fitting kit at £20 is worth buying. I only used the two steel brackets which could be fabricated in 5 mins from scrap metal. If you don't have attachment points you will need the strengthening plates that come with the kit.

Jan T
J Targosz

This thread was discussed between 16/11/2023 and 18/11/2023

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