Anyone fitted harnesses?

[girlracer]

I've got a pair of 3" wide black Willans harnesses in my attic, which I had in my V8 MG once upon a trackday.

What with the hassle of my Tuscan seatbelt sometimes locking up and the nice thought of the added safety, I was thinking about getting my harnesses put in the Tuscan.

Anyone done this? Anyone give me a good reason not to bother? I generally think harnesses in road cars look naff, but the Tuscan could probably pull it off...

I used to have them in my MGB and that was a daily driver, so I'm aware of the hassle factor!

[Efb]

Does anybody have any pics of any installed??

Cheers

[eharding]

I think the main problem is that there in the Tuscan there is no convenient location on the chassis to mount the top rear connection for harnesses - there was someone either on the Yahoo list or here on PH who was planning on having a mounting bar made up which would bolt onto both top seatbelt mounts, but I haven't heard anything more for a while. It's odd - the early 4.0 Griffs had this problem - no suitable chassis point - which was later rectified on the 500s. I had harnesses on my Griff, and there are certainly times when I miss them on the Tuscan - having yourself clamped firmly to the seat gives you a much better idea of how the back end of the car is (mis)behaving. Another issue might be the positioning of harnesses - whilst the hoop-style headrest certainly *looks* like the upper harness would pass through, it might prove to be a tight fit or at the wrong height. If you have light coloured leather, the belts would probably make a mess of it if used regularly.

[girlracer]

I've got black leather

Good points though. I just did a search (sorry, should've done one before) and found out about that harness bar guy. But I really wouldn't want an extra bar installed.

In my MG they were bolted into the space behind the seats, onto the ledge. The Tuscan also has a similar ledge, but is there a problem because of the material that area is made of? (what is it made of there?)

How is this approached in the race cars?

[atg]

I'd guess that ledge is just fibreglass in which case it will be of no use. I'd guess it will be necessary to attach the harness to the chassis, or something equivalently strong. Is there really no mounting point for this built into the standard Tuscan chassis? Seems odd.

[MB.]

The shelf is just fibre glass and would not hold the harnesses in a crash.
As far as I could find out, there is no chassis member under the rear deck that could be used.
The factory had "no plans" to put harness mounting points in when I asked a couple of years back.
This is why I was looking at getting a bar between the top seatbelt mounts and using that - haven't done anything about it though as my car was off the road for a while and then I moved to Holland and so wasn't sprinting any more.
Let me know if you find out a way of fixing them, it is still on my list of things to do one day!

Graham

[markoso]

I think you have to be careful with the angle between the rear harness straps & the horizontal or you can transfer too much vertical load to the seat back - esp. with road car seats too.