Fitting rear seat in a T4 licensing stuff.

[Sunny43.5]

If it is afactory two seater most likely it would be mounted against the drivers side wall behind the front seat . They would then used the pillar at the top for the upper anchor point then the lower point the retactor would be at the bottom of the pillar . Now the end of the belt would either be bolted with the retractor or to another separate point further forward , the reason for that is in most case the lower point will be behind the seat making it hard to reach the buckle part . Now if they have put a retainer to hold the belt then that cannot be used to bolt the rest of the fittings to . When a seat is built they would test it with the belts mounted for that vehicle model , if you try to mount belts to an alternative point say on the seat it may fail in an accident . We used to build side folding seats for Maxi Taxi's and the two seater would have a lap belt and a lap sash for the outer position , so we would have three mounting points on the seat and the remainder on the body . If you try to mount all the belts to the seat the engineering is enormous , ask any owners of a van with rear seats and they will tell you its a two person job to lift them out of the van due to their weight . When we built ours it was like standing under a cold shower tearing up $100 notes as we destroyed quite a few seat frames while testing them until we achieved the required loads . Simple answer to your question would be no , but an engineer may say something else but it would be his responsibility if he certifies it .

[posscakes]

I had it set up how you've described. The problem is if you bolt end of the belt to or next to the retractor the seat belt is too short because the pillar is a foot behind the seat it needs to come forward. If you bolt the end of the belt to the anchor point at the base of the seat the seat belt length is perfect. I may out of interest go and have a look inside a caravelle tomorrow i think my mechanic has a few sitting in his yard.

[Sunny43.5]

I understand what you mean , the alternative would be to bolt the end of the belt part to a riser , What we would do if there wasn't a place on the body work we would then use a 50mm wide 5 mm thick length of steel with one end bent 90 degrees and then bolted to the floor further forwards then bolt the actual end on to the top end of the metal plate that solves the lenght issue .

[posscakes]

Thanks heaps for your input it is extremely helpful! Back through the floor was something i was thinking about earlier, riser makes a lot of sense.

[Sunny43.5]

No problem I hope you get it sorted , sorry for the long winded replies its not easy to give a quick answer as its complicated business . Like I said I have been out of the system for some time now but one of my former employees still does the work on the Gold Coast and I stay in touch with him so as to hear of any major changes in the rules etc .

[posscakes]

So i sussed a t4 with seats today and the end of the seat belt was indeed bolted to the mounting point below the retractor. Perhaps the seat belt i got with the seat come out of a swb or indeed just a front one where the pillar is lot closer. Either way i'm confident i can make it work. Mechanic cautioned against attaching to the seat aswell reckoned through the floor was better but to check with engineer.

[Sunny43.5]

If the seat is an original VW one then it would be set up for a Caravelle probably also the height of the pillar mount does have allowances which van be as much as 150 mm either way from a central point . There is a special template we used to use and it gave an arc behind the shoulder to work from , we used to buy new belts for any second hand installation and there were some longer ones around , mechanic is right use the floor .