No John,
I am not ‘highly critical’ of the set-up, indeed I was rather impressed with Mike’s advice of this being a seat belt installation done in 1954. Of course this 1954 seat belt installation would not equal nor comply with current regulation safety standards for seat belt anchorages, but equally his XK120 engine would not come close to complying with current emissions standards either.
I have copied all Mikes photos and advice, for my ongoing reference files, as this is the first time I had heard of such efforts dating back as far as 1954.
Jaguar themselves did not engineer/include seat belt anchorages until introducing them in (by memory) 1962/3 and there are detailed Service Bulletins showing these newly introduced arrangements for Mark 2, Mark 10 and E-type, so even the first E-types and Mark 10s introduced in 1961 still had nothing. Jaguar thereafter did offer compatible Seat Belts as an optional extra, but only for these cars built including their properly designed anchorages (its a package design - belts and anchorages). Indeed in my published Papers on E-type Literature Packs, I do include mention of the included Seat Belt pamphlet included with the Literature Packs of any E-types so optioned.
But the honor of the FIRST jurisdiction in the world that legally mandated the compulsory fitment of Seat Belts (in all makes/models of cars) was the Australian State of Victoria, and that was for cars built from January 1965 onwards. The rest of Australia followed a couple years later, ahead of anywhere else in the world. USA got hung up with ‘personal liberties’ excuses/reasons for not mandating the wearing of seat belts, and went through a period of crazy designs of special door rails/guides that automatically fitted seat belts to the driver, when he closed the door. Not sure about current state of play in USA, I think now a legal requirement to fit them, albeit others can advise.
My point in all of this is that you need to be realistic about what you are trying to achieve fitting seat belts to an XK120/140 OTS as per the original question. AS before, my personal view (based on a not insignificant amount of direct first-hand experience) is don’t bother trying to fit a lap/sash seat belt that requires a properly engineered and located upper mounting point for the sash. But a well thought out, properly executed, lap-belt only installation, with of course only a need for the two ‘floor-level’ mounting points, is quite achievable.
But the emphasis is on ‘properly executed’, as anything less is pretty well a waste of time, and little more than just a ‘feel good’ installation. And yes, as has Ed from his earlier posting, I too have seen seat belts mounted into timber floors (only), and indeed during debate (at a Federal Government to State Government level) with VicRoads they claimed ‘anything was better than nothing’ when introducing State Legislation mandating retrospective fitment of seat belts for pre 1965 cars (that did not necessarily include factory designed/installed anchorages - Jaguars DID have them, but only back to 1962/3, and never in any model XK).
I did offer the advice, that if anyone was serious about installing a ‘properly executed’ seat belt and anchorages installation, then the Australian Regulation ADR5 was a useful reference/guideline, but that’s not to say there are not others who cant properly engineer anchorages, but realistically there is a lot more to occupant protection in a modern motor car, than just the seat belts and their anchorages.
Roger