Needed to replace the passenger-side front seatbelt in my old C-reg Honda, so off to Halfords for a replacement.
Now, my (probably wrong!) understanding of inertia-reel belts was that they had two mechanisms inside - one locks the belt under hard braking, and the other when the belt is stretched suddenly. So I assumed that the belts would be "handed" left-right as the direction of the braking force would be different side-to-side. Well, Halfords had 20 different types of belt, but no sign of left-right differences. The Halford's "assistant" - an 18 year old girl - was charming, but hadn't a clue what I was talking about.
Whatever, I bought a belt and installed it and guess what? It seems to lock up under hard accelleration, but not when I'm braking..... It does lock up if you give the belt a sharp tug though.
Any opinions from you tech' people??
If this is a stupid post, just tell me.
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Its a stupid post...
Seatbelts are not 'handed' - the inertia sensor works in 360 degrees.
Check out www.securon.co.uk
More info and application guide.
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A thousand thankyou's to Aprilia. My stupidity is acknowledged.
The site you linked to: securon.co.uk is actually the manufacturer of the belt I have. I've checked the site and I can find plenty of pages there about fitting the belts with the words "this belt fits both sides" repeated on many pages.
In fairness to myself, the box that the belt came in and the fitting instructions inside it made no mention whatever of this.
As for the belt "seeming" not to lock under braking, well I haven't proplerly tested it yet with a passenger. I just drove it round the block tugging on it to see if it locked or not. Tomorrow, I'll have a hot body in the passenger seat and we'll do a proper check.
Thanks again.
Chris
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I'm not having this.
I could never get away with calling something "a stupid post".
It's not, IMHO.
I remember, a long time ago, when they were handed. A ball used to roll forwards, on large decelerations. It surely wouldn't roll backwards.
Britax used to make most of them.
A good post and a technically astute reply, but no need....
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SOME seatbelts are definitely 'handed'. I tried to swop the front belts on my 93K 205 recently and discovered that they no longer worked. They were also labelled D and G in proper French fashion.
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Sean
Don't take it too seriously - I was simply taking the original poster up on his invitation; it was tongue-in-cheek, I didn't really mean it.......
As regards the question - well, the Britax units you mention (the old 'ball-and-cup' design) were not handed. The ball *would* roll backwards and lock the belt. If you think about it it must work like that - seatbelts are not designed to lock only on a frontal impact, they must lock for rear, side and roll-over impacts too. The mechanisms are designed to allow the belt to feed out when in one 'plane' only (usually mechanism either horizontal or vertical, depending on application). Some types are 'handed' in the sense they are supplied with different mounting brackets dependent upon the side the belt is to be mounted - but the sensor and reel unit would be identical. The only time I have come across 'unique' sensor units is in the '3rd rear' seatbelt mechanisms - they are sometimes wierd and wonderful.
Some makers also supply 'adjustable' sensor units so that the retractor can be mounted at any angle - these are for one-off custom applications.
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This is hardly state of the art technology, but I would just observe that the belts on my 1964 Triumph 2000 definitely don't work equally in all directions.
Parked or driving down a steep hill the belts lock and are impossible to pull out. The reverse happens pointing up a hill.
Stopping at a junction going downhill I have learned to pull out a foot of belt BEFORE getting there, otherwise I am imprisoned in the belt and cannot lean forwards to check the road.
IMO it was a very sensible post. Lots of things are handed (even sump plugs I remember from an older post that got savaged) and it is sensible to try and ask these obvious questions before buying or breaking something.
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