MG Car Club of South Australia
CLUB REGISTRATION NOTES
From..Geoff Goode
W
CHILD RESTRAINTS
AND SEATBELTS
e have been informed by the
Federation of Historic Motoring
Clubs that as of the 13 th December
2018, a change in the regulations re
child restraints and seatbelts in Condi-
tional Registered club vehicles, has oc-
curred. The exemption that allowed any
person to travel in a Club Registered
vehicle fitted with seatbelts, without
wearing a seat belt, has been repealed.
Therefore, the exemption no longer ex-
ists. Further, any child under seven
years of age must travel in a child re-
straint.
This means, in my opinion, two things.
Firstly, when travelling in Club Regis-
tered vehicles, if seatbelts are fitted,
persons seven years and over must use
them. Secondly, children under the age
of seven are not allowed to travel in any
Club Registered vehicle unless re-
strained in an approved properly fas-
tened child restraint.
Whilst on the subject of seatbelts, re-
cently I was asked how one might best
mount a pair of three point seatbelts in
the MGA model. The following explana-
tion is along the lines that I gave to a
fellow MGA owner on what I consider
the best way to mount three point seat-
belts.
The comments below refer to MGA
roadsters 1500 or 1600. The 1600
Mk2's have the mounting-points factory
installed. Furthermore, I recommend
static belts only, as they will hold you
firmly in place. This is essential in a car
that has so little space between yourself
and the dashboard/windscreen if a
crash occurs. Modern cars have pre-
tensioning systems that work in con-
junction with the seatbelt retractors.
Unless you are fairly competent at
mounting these safety items, I would
suggest you use Wiltshire Motor Trim-
mers for fitting “off the shelf” seatbelts.
Alternatively, you can source a kit of
parts based on the MGA 1600 Mk 2 for
these early models and MG Adelaide
Workshops can fit them for you. Both
these organisations advertise in our
magazine so you can use them with
confidence.
If you decide to mount them yourself,
then you take responsibility for the out-
come. My guidelines below are just
that, guidelines that I do not take legal
responsibility for. Follow them at you
risk.
I suggest you source the Klippen series
belts and fittings from Wiltshire. I chose
to mount the upper belt ends on the
tonneau panel as this is the best point
of departure, from mount to shoulder
(within 15 degrees from the horizontal),
and was specified by the factory for
roadsters until the 1600 Mk2 model ar-
rived with fitted mountings. A section at
the back of the factory workshop man-
ual shows the exact location for the
mounting points. In my installation, the
top mounting was fitted to the tonneau
panel as a "sandwich" reinforcement
using an outer plate of similar size and
thickness to match the inner plate sup-
plied with the seatbelts. A couple of
small nuts and bolts were used to hold
the plates together.
The floor mounting points were chosen
for maximum strength and positioned
where the steel frame encircles the
wooden floor. The outer fixing was
bolted through the corner plate immedi-
ately in front of the front bush of the rear
leaf spring, using the rear most screw
hole as a guide, and drilled out to
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