Plus 2 Seatbelt Mountings.

PostPost by: G4ILN » Mon Oct 16, 2006 8:18 am

I have just been refitting the seat belt mountings to my Plus 2.
These are the two plates (per side) held together by four nuts and
bolts which have the actual seat belt reels bolted through them. They
are fitted one inside the car and one at the front of the rear wheel
arch with the fibreglass of the bodywork sandwiched between them. I
have a few questions which I hope someone can answer.

The plates are not symetrical, the large hole in the middle being
offset to one side. Depending on which way up the plates are fitted
the offset can be towards or away from the transmission tunnel. I
would have expected both plates to have the holes offset towards the
transmission tunnel, so that the seatbelt reel clears the bodyside
and the fuel breather pipes which are in close proximity. However in
my case both sets of plates must have beeen originally assembled with
the large holes offset towards the driver's or righthand side of the
car. This is clear from the positions of the holes drilled in the
body for the plates. Is there a reason for this, or is it a typical
Lotus assembly cockup?

If I try to bolt the "U" shaped brackets holding the reels to the
plates then, due to the offset, they foul the heads of the plate
fixing bolts on one side and won't sit flat on the plates. Is this
fouling intentional to stop the brackets rotating on the plate, or
should I insert some washers to lift the brackets clear of the plates?

What is the purpose of the aluminium spacers fitted to the bolts
retaining the "U" shaped brackets? These are under the wheelarch and
sit between the plate and the nut on the large diameter bolt which
passes throught the "U"shaped bracket, inside mounting bracket,
bodywork and outside mounting bracket. Why didn't Lotus just use a
shorter bolt thus eliminating the need for spacers?

Neither the manual or the parts list is clear on these points.

Thanks.

Graham.
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PostPost by: Gordon Sauer » Wed Oct 18, 2006 2:48 am

Working on redoing my car totally, a Federal +2S/130 and the plate at the
front of the rear wheel arch, high on the car to take the reel assembly, is the
only thing I did not take off the car--its hole offset makes the hole closer to
the inside of car. The parts manual on page B111 shows the transmission
tunnel mount for the inside connection of the lap belt, to bolt into the tranny
tunnel itself in the threaded hole for that purpose. The third mounting point
for the seat belt attachment is a plate that bolts onto the sill and the bolt
threads into that. The only real offset, fit issue seems to be the large reel
and on mine it would be closer to the inside of the car for clearance against
the roof. Then there are multiple spacers between the reel and the plate to
let the reel sit away from the plate--these are shown in the parts manual and
account for the really long bolt. I'm keeping this all for myself so I can
figure it out when I get there. Good luck. Gordon Sauer
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PostPost by: G4ILN » Wed Oct 18, 2006 7:06 pm

Thanks Gordon.

I had to replace the seat belt mounting plates under the wheelarches
as they had rusted out. It was only when I came to reassemble them
that I noticed that both sets of plates had the offset towards the
right hand side of the car. This is a bit strange, because the large
holes through the bodywork were obviously either "cast in" or cut
before the plates were fitted, rather than the plates being used as
drilling jigs. I'll see how much clearance there is when I fit the
reels and reverse the plates if need be.

My seat belt reels are like those shown on page 42, Fig 18 of the
body section of the workshop manual. It looks like three large
washers (not shown in the figure" are used to prevent the "U" shaped
brackets fouling two of the four bolts through the plates. The
tubular spacers are not needed inside the car and for some reason are
fitted under the wheelarch instead. The large fixing "bolt" is
actually a setscrew threaded right up to the head, so I've no idea
why the tubular spacers are fitted.

Graham.

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