aftermarket 3pt seatbelts vs car seat: advice wanted!!

[8ton]

I have a '72 f100, low miles decent truck. Stock seat is in excellent shape.
My wife used to really like it, but now that we have a kid she has been pushing me to sell it. Her problems with it are our safety (with only lap belts and no head rest) and that our toddler's rear facing car seat won't work with the design of the stock seat belts. The springy seats don't help,as the Car seat tends to shift. We can't ride as a family as is.
I want to keep the truck at least until we have another kid, and was hoping to take the family camping and to the beach in the old truck.
I am thinking of swapping in a '90s seat with head rests and installing aftermarket 3pt retractable seat belts, with an aftermarket manually adjustable lap belt in the middle for the car seat.
Does anyone have any experience with a similar setup? Any other tips on making the truck safer?

[Ranchero50]

Yes to all of the above. Seat back should not be free pivoting, 3 point belts from a newer trucks work well. You should be able to add the over seat strap mounts to the rear of the cab (or gas tank bolt area) for those supports

Honestly our trucks are deadly by modern standards. The doors do not have reinforcements and the cab isn't armored so a heavy impact on the rear will fold the bed into the back of the cab. Saw it a couple years ago when a members truck got pinned between a dump truck and something else and died. Add in the gas tank behind the seat and high energy impacts are hard on the occupants.

I think you need to look at what is acceptable risk for your use and duty. I don't think I would run a manual brake and loose steering truck in a modern rush hour environment. I've run my dually on the interstate without much drama but dragging my dad's 28' Cris Craft around the DC beltway sucked.

[8ton]

Thanks for the reply. I have thought about the lack of door bars, but didn't know about the rear of the cab.

Brakes are manual now, but I am planning on adding a booster asap, and am freshening up the drums, as well as new shocks, king pins, and maybe sway bars. Truck only has 58k on it so steering is still decently tight. I live in a rural area, so there isn't much big city freeway driving in the plans. Although I should invest in a louder horn, just in case.

[sargentrs]

Not approving or condemning anything but If your car seat is still being installed rear facing, consider installing some latch plates at the inside seat belts mounting bolts. Use these to hook up the Child Safety Restraint System straps that came with the car seat. Those are the metal bars in the crack of your newer model cars back seat that the car seat restraints buckle into. The one's we have in our cars (not my truck) for hauling grandbaby's hold that sucker in there very securely. You can then add a hook on the floor in front of the seat and use the one that goes over the back of the car seat and cinch it up nice and tight. That would counteract the seat bouncing.

[1972hiboy]

Yes to all of the above. Seat back should not be free pivoting, 3 point belts from a newer trucks work well. You should be able to add the over seat strap mounts to the rear of the cab (or gas tank bolt area) for those supports

Honestly our trucks are deadly by modern standards. The doors do not have reinforcements and the cab isn't armored so a heavy impact on the rear will fold the bed into the back of the cab. Saw it a couple years ago when a members truck got pinned between a dump truck and something else and died. Add in the gas tank behind the seat and high energy impacts are hard on the occupants.

I think you need to look at what is acceptable risk for your use and duty. I don't think I would run a manual brake and loose steering truck in a modern rush hour environment. I've run my dually on the interstate without much drama but dragging my dad's 28' Cris Craft around the DC beltway sucked.

I saved that picture on my old computer. It was hit in the back by a medium duty mechanics truck and pushed into a 10 wheeler dump truck I think. The way the truck pretzeled like that gave me nightmares. I started keeping more of a watch in my rear view mirror after that because the conversation was the mechanics truck never really tried to stop ( distracted).

[Ranchero50]

Thanks for the reply. I have thought about the lack of door bars, but didn't know about the rear of the cab.

Brakes are manual now, but I am planning on adding a booster asap, and am freshening up the drums, as well as new shocks, king pins, and maybe sway bars. Truck only has 58k on it so steering is still decently tight. I live in a rural area, so there isn't much big city freeway driving in the plans. Although I should invest in a louder horn, just in case.

Disc brakes and power steering from a donor dent side pronto or look into doing a CV swap. You can also rebuild the suspension before swapping it in. Our trucks were designed to run 50 mph on occasion.