Date:         Fri, 14 Feb 2014 22:16:05 -0900
Reply-To:     Mark Tuovinen <aksyncronaut@GMAIL.COM>
Sender:       Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From:         Mark Tuovinen <aksyncronaut@GMAIL.COM>
Subject:      Re: 86 Vanagon, shoulder belts for rear bench seat (for sale)
Comments: To: Ian Connelly <iconic@gmail.com>
In-Reply-To:  <CAF=paiTyjYkQtOrr=eedvFzN1J6MB501+7oeacB+HnoJTKBqQQ@mail.gmail.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1

Ian,

The link you provided says they are for use on rear facing jump seats.  If
that is your intent and to use them for child safety seats then you should
rethink your plan.  If you are going to put your kids on the back seat then
its ok as long as the belts you have are being sold for use in that
location which these do not seem to be.   You should never use a child car
seat in a rear facing seat, I can't recall the specifics behind this right
now but the NHTSA has a week long 40 hour course for child safety seat
installation and this is addressed in the course.  The issue has to do with
how the belts operate and how the seats are designed to sit in a vehicle
plus the physics involved in a crash,  Young children should be rear facing
in the US until 1 yr and 20lbs minimum(your state may say longer) in europe
I believe they do it for 2 yrs but that is still in forward facing seats
never rear facing unless the manufacturer sold the vehicle and a seat
designed for it.  My wife knows more on this as she has taken the course
more than once but she is in Seattle right now.  Return them and get the
belts for use on the rear seat, they are easy to install and your children
will be safer there.  You should be able to find new belts from an online
vendor or pull some from a 1988 or newer that came from VW with them.  VW
even sold a kit to upgrade to rear shoulder belts at one time but I doubt
they are available anymore and the one I picked up as NOS on ebay once did
not have the lower bracket in it.

Mark in AK


On Fri, Feb 14, 2014 at 12:20 PM, Ian Connelly <iconic@gmail.com> wrote:

> Hello,
>
> I'm a Vanagon newbie (86 GL with an awesome huge sliding sunroof!), and
> I've been on the list lurking and learning for a few years now. I recently
> bought some shoulder belts from GoWesty. I've got two kids in carseats and
> modern carseats are not considered safe with lap belts.
>
> http://www.gowesty.com/ec_view_details.php?id=3443
>
>