Fitting bolt in cage - bit of advice needed

[drjim]

Thanks for the advice chaps.

I have the drivers (and nearly the passenger) seat fitted in, feet reach the newly fitted pedal box (bias bar jobbie officially for a mk2 escort), starting to get a feel for how it's going to turn out and I like it a lot.

Door bars have a fitting that welds into the end and it then bolts in. There is a fitting that welds onto the cage vertical as well. I have been practicing welding thicker stuff whilst doing the seat mountings.

I also need a harness mount of some sort, options are...

Use the original rear seat belt brackets which are probably a little too low - though belts would probably be at 45 degrees

chop out the rear bulkhead (might do this anyway to save weight), fit the steel strut brace I have and use that as the harness mount

or idea that occurred this PM is that the door bars with my cage are exactly the right length to cross the rear hoop. I could get another bar, weld the fittings on to the rear hoop and fit it there. Not sure if that's a good idea or not.

A transverse bar sounds a good idea, in fact one in the front hoop, and one in the main hoop ideally. Not sure where to get extra tubing though. Also if I theoretically at some stage in the future went racing, would the fact that my bolt in OMP cage has extra bits added be an issue??

In an ideal world I would know all this stuff, until I learn it I'll keep asking questions before doing anything. If anyone needs medical advice in return, let me know.

Jim

[drjim]

I decided to get a blue book so I'd get things right, and I think I largely have.

The chaps in my workshop seem to have a load of CDS tube I can use for transverse bits. There's a minor problem as my seat is in between the main hoop uprights, so I'll need a bend or two in a transverse bar there to fit behind the seats. from looking at the bluebook, a bolted in cross member at the backstays will be fine, and I can use that for my harnesses to fix to.

Apart from the fact I have some cheapie seats, it appears that this car is going to be eligible for quite a few racing series, a new seat when I want to do more than trackdays, and I am away