Interior: Installing lap safety belts in a 1950 Champion 4 door sedan. Hints, ideas are welcome

[Lothar]

I've had my Champion for ten years now, so I decided that I might as well show it some love and reupholster the front seat. The seat upholstery was mohair (I think, this is a W-3 "Regal" trim car). I wanted to make sure that the drivetrain was solid, however, before I invested much in the interior of the car. Turns out it is, and I have a spare engine as well, so I wanted to proceed. Then I discovered that I couldn't find ANY good grade upholstery fabric that came even close to matching this tan/grey with red pinstripes pattern. My upholsterer friend and I settled on a sort of ribbed pattern, sand colored fabric with a tan vinyl back and edges. Not standard, but it should look nice.
Anyway, that brings me to the seatbelts. Now that I have the front seat out, I want to install seat belts. I bought extra long (84" I think?) "Beam's" brand lap belts from SI.
A couple complications that I see already are that I will need to remove or modify the black climatizer heater deflector plate, and I will probably need to place the outer anchor (the one nearest the door) behind the seat and route the belt over the back foot rest. I haven't drilled any holes yet, so I would really appreciate advice from anyone who has put lap belts in a 1947-52 sedan about where to drill anchor holes and how to route the belts. Thanks!

[Lothar]

Full disclosure: I did a topic search ("seat belt 1950") right AFTER I posted this topic. I found a thread that I posted in 2009 on the SAME TOPIC. That tells you something about the pace of my restoration project. In my defense, however, if you look at the responses to my 2009 thread, I didn't get much guidance back then on this topic.

[RadioRoy]

Here's what I did.

I ran the belts through the crack between the seat back and the cushion. The bolts go through the floor on the slanted part of the floor behind the front seat - the foot rest part of the floor, behind the seat. No need to muck with the heater deflector.

In the back seats, the bolts go through the slanted floor again, below the bottom edge of the seat back.

I put big heavy multiple fender washers under the underside of the floor to spread out the pressure.

It's probably too late now, but there are specialty places that sell upholstery fabric for old cars. LeBaron Bonney is one of them and there are others, SMS fabrics, the folks who bought Rene Harger's business the first time, plus Renee is back in business again, Phantom Autoworks, etc.

[Lothar]

Roy
Thanks for the advice. I figured that I would probably have to mount the eyebolts, at least the outside ones, behind the seat, but I'm worried about rear seat passengers stubbing their toes. As to the upholstery fabric, I tried Phantom Works, but they didn't have what I wanted. I didn't go to LeBaron-Bonney. Just that name sounds expensive! I'm a dyed-in-the-mohair CASO with a super-common 1950 Champion 4 door, so I will settle for nicely done recovering that looks like it belongs there.

[Skip Lackie]

One hint: the belts should be close to vertical when the front seat is in the full back position.

[StudeRich]

Caution

The rear seat passengers will just have to deal with it, because the FIRST Rule in mounting these is, NEVER install them UNDER the seat.

[Lothar]

Thanks for the help, guys! Does anyone have any pictures of their setup?