Child seat and cup holders

[drrod]

I thought I would post some pics of how I have mounted a child car seat in our van as well as our cup holder solution.

Car seat: slight modifications to set ups already described.
I got the hardware and the rope from Mountain Equip Co-op. It is mountain climbing quality and therefore is more than strong enough. I mounted the seat belt (obtained from a wrecking yard) to the mounting bolts of the middle seat mechanism. The seat belt ends were then threaded down between the seat cushion and the seat frame and attached. When not in use, the belt can be rolled up and stored in the pocket on the inside edge of the seat. The tether rope was fastened in much the same way to the rear bench seat mounting bolts. I have mounted the hardware on both middle captains seats as well as the front and back mounting bolts of the rear bench seat. This allows the child's seat to be placed in either captain's chair or in the middle of the rear bench seat or the placement of multiple seats. The hardware and rope are all capable of withstanding 5,000lbs+ so multiple seats would not be a problem. The only downside is that when the lapbelt is attached it does not allow the captain's seat to rotate but this can easily be overcome by undoing the carbiner (sp?) on each end when not needed.

Cup holders:
I bought the cup holders at Cdn Tire (about $4.00 ea) and just mounted them with a SS screw to the side of the console. There is a lip on top of the cupholder that fits nicely onto the top of the console and they mount far enough forward so as not to interfere with your knee.

Both solutions are relatively inexpensive and took me less than an hour to do. The biggest hassle was locating a suitable lap belt at the wrecking yard.

Rod

[drrod]

Here are the rest of the pictures of the car seat install and cup holders.
Rod

[Firesong]

Just a quick word about the climbing rope you used.
I would actually have picked up the climbing tape/tubular tape
offered at MEC rather than the rope you used.
It offers more resistance to crud, oils and stuff. Plus
climbing line offers stretch which isn't something you
want in this application. The clip you have on it under
stress could actually go through it.
The tubular tape is what is used for a static line, highly
resistant to friction and has no stretch to it whatsoever.
It will double the working strength compared to the line you
are using and still not be that big.
I included a few pictures with this. The tubular tape is
being used as a quick draw for climbing (the carabeaner isn't
normally sideways in case your wondering.. just laying that way).
I think the stuff is actually cheaper than the rope too.

J
p.s. didn't mean to correct you. It's the safety aspect
drilled into my head from the courses.

[FalcoColumbarius]

Wouldn't a little stretch be a good thing in an accident scenario? Like say a head on where the vehicle suddenly stops: Would not the spring in the rope take some of the stress from the child's shoulders?

Falco.

[mattias]

We have the same setup in our van, except we put bolt hangers on the two rear bolts of the captains seat, and added a couple links of chain to each. The child seat's built-in anchor slips between the seat back and seat bottom and attaches securely. We also use the lap belt with a block for backup.

One thing you may want to consider is having the top anchor attach to the bottom of the captain's chair (to one or both of your bolt hangers) so somebody can sit in the bench seat behind the car seat. This also allows the captain's chair to move on its track without adjusting anything. Cheers,
Mattias

p.s. I love your cup holder placement!

[Firesong]

Hey Falco,
You wouldn't want it to stretch.
You want it to stay tight. There will always be give in any system
which you can't account for and for every reaction there is an
equal and opposite reaction.. that whip has to go somewhere
and you don't want it going into the child.
Plus at the angle of the rope which is pretty much straight across
you weaken it depending on the angle of the attachment. Increases
the force on it.
For this application steel cable/wire would be better. You know,
that stuff that's coated with plastic. Much better.
I like the cup holders.. i got something similar from CanTire too.

J

[fexlboi]

Agree with Firesong. You definitely don't want a dynamic rope in this case. Also the climbing rope you used is rated for the straight pull DOWN and not forces which pull from the side. What kind of knot did you use?
As far as I can see it from the photos the rope with the two bolts on the back bench is the worst anchor you can make. Attached why...

Picture 1.png (136.28 KiB) Viewed 11448 times

[drrod]

Looks like I will be changing out the rope for steel cable. I thought that a rope strong enough to tow a car would be sufficient. Who knew!
As for the anchor point angle for the tether.....what about the angle between the factory seat belt points? Using the logic from the diagram, it would seem that both ends of the seat belt should arise from points only some 20 degrees apart. No car I have seen does this, especially when you consider the angle between the anchor points on the door posts which is 180 degrees for all intents.
When I look at the metal of the tether snap, I think it would fail before anything else in the system. It is not as robust looking as one would think.

BTW- I used a bowline knot

Thanks for the input.
Rod

[fexlboi]

As for the anchor point angle for the tether.....what about the angle between the factory seat belt points? Using the logic from the diagram, it would seem that both ends of the seat belt should arise from points only some 20 degrees apart. No car I have seen does this, especially when you consider the angle between the anchor points on the door posts which is 180 degrees for all intents.

Yes and no. The seat belt distribute the force over three points and not just two as well as the points are not as far apart as your rope. Also the angle of the anchor doesn't matter as long as you are aware of the unproportional increase of the force. You can have a 180° anchor, but you need a much stronger material.
But this stuff is all just in case, cause' as you already wrote, there are probably other points on the whole set-up which would fail first.

[cinjay]

I did the seatbelts for the kid’s car seats last weekend.

I followed the suggestion of one of the members that posted awhile back and used a simple center seat belt from another car.

This is basically what I did:
Went to the local Auto Wrecker's. Made a guess as to what seatbelts I was going to take out. I chose two 1998 Toyota Corolla's(other years will probably work as well). With close to the same color interiors as my Deli. Using a 14mm socket with a longer extension I removed the bolts for the rear center seat belts. I kept all the hardware associated with the belts. They turned out to be the same thread as the ones on our Deli's. So for that part it is a simple bolt on. I removed the captain’s chairs from the Van completely. (I did the wobble fix at the same time ) Removed the non compatible seat belt mechanism from the chairs. Being sure to keep the shoulder belt latches so they will still be operable if need be, and attached the new belts from the Corolla. For the tether strap that gets clipped behind the seat. I bought Canadian Tire child seat tether anchors, and bolted them to one of the grade 8 bolts (gold) that attach the seat to the swivel base. Put the seats back in the van. Tested the fit with the car seats, and everything seems to be working great(nice and tight!)

Hope that helps a few parents out there

[flyfishn]

For my teether strap, I just drilled into the flange of the seat and attached the hook there.

[Jsq]

I just completed my prototype child seat install. I wanted to keep the mobility of the sliding swivel seat so this is what i came up with. Any suggestions for improvement or obvious errors in safety would be appreciated.

[DeliTan]

Hi Folks;

A couple of comments...

For this application, I would have to agree that tube tape would be far stronger than either dynamic or static rope depending on guage (diameter), however, I wouldn't use either. Chain would be strongest and "flexible" but steel wire (aircraft cable) would be the most suitable. When using cable I recommend using a proper swaging tool, don't just squish the crimps. Using Quick links and "Metolious" hangers are fine but be aware of the orientation. They are intended to be loaded in only one direction but I expect they would be plenty strong enough to serve this purpose. If you suddenly "load them heavily" be sure to check or replace them when doing the other repairs. Also, be aware of the potential of unscrewing their mounting bolts based on counterclockwise forces.

If anyone would like to know the breaking strengths of wire rope, I can dig it up. The industry standard for carrying live loads or loads over people is 10:1, so in a (theoretical) straight pull, not including crimps or connectors, 1/8th wire will break at 2000 lbs or 200 lbs safe working load.

BTW, If you needed to use rope for any "live" loads, never use a bowline. Bowlines are an easy convenient knot for lots of uses but not when safety is an issue; use a figure 8.

john

[FalcoColumbarius]

NOTICE: Topic has been split due to DeliTan's glib comment. The new discussion is called "Let's Talk In Knots!" and can be found in "Delica Canada/ General Discussion".

Falco.

[Jsq]

In reference to DeliTans comment about using a proper swaging tool...does anyone out there own a swaging tool? I would be willing to pay someone for some custom work. I investigated buying my own tool but it wouldn't be worth the money for the small amount I'd use it. Thanks.