those of you with harnesses, your thoughts please

rear mount is completely wrong - in the event of an accident all the stress is put on the bolt head and it will shear off - force needs to be at 90deg to it. I'll dig out a pic......

in all honesty if you are not getting the car msa or rac logbooked or are only using it for occasional track days etc, i would not bother with harnesses , if not fitted properly they can be dangerous, also for everyday use the are a jolly pain in the arese, i have had a few 'booked rally acrs over the years and when using on the road i have been bleddy glad to get out!! only my opinion though as i love to see a race /rally prepped car!!

you may have a point they were about the same price as normal retractable belts, and I literally flipped a coin on which I bought. I have only bought one so far though, in case I don't get on with it. but they do look good

cool, so aim to get the mount near enough 90 degrees to the path of the rear belt and far enough back so the angle it takes over my shoulder isn't too tight ?

I loved using a harness with my buckets but i did find the following:
1) make sure you can reach switches - theres nowt more annoying than trying to change a radio station when Will Young comes on only to find that you can't reach the buttons grrrrrrrrrrrrrr
2) try to avoid changing your driving style: I had a harness in my 1.1 fiesta when i was younger and i took it out for my own safety because i felt invinciblke with it on and drove everywhere accordingly!!
other than that I'm a fan of them although i've got a cage as well, (there was a thread about harnesses a while back and it caused a lengthy debate iirc)

what mantasport is saying is bang on. personally, i wouldnt run a harness unless theres a harness bar/spreader bar of some sort above shoulder height for the harness to run up and over- one of the most common injuries from wearing a harness without this is broken or dislocated collarbones- its not hard to see how this happens.
some bucket seats with harness holes are stiff enough to prevent this, but not all- echeck the holes are adiqutely re-enforced and not just put though the material.

think where the top mount of a 3 point seatbelt is- well above shoulder height!

all good points guys

the stock mountings for the belts are pretty low anyway - about the same as the top of the seat, so I'll have a think about how to mount the harness around the same height.

or just get some three point inertia belts

With that type of mount (bolt on) harnesses, you should have all the force perpendicular to the bolt otherwise it'll shear. You could replace the mounts with clip in harnesses replace the bolt with an eyelet, but the harnesses would still push down on our shoulders in the event of a crash.


I ran buckets and harnesses in my 106 as a dail, and after approximately one week you get sick of them. Sick to death.

The mini has some harnesses in mounted just liek the above, and some bucket seats mounted on bits of wood. I'm scared to drive the thing (Just as well that it's always in bits really!)

I can reach everything from the seat - the MG is quite small
the original belts are three point static, so presumably the problem of not being able to move about would happen with stock replacements ?