<VV> What to do with old Corvair seat belts? Fun!

[Frank DuVal]

Back about 1990 I visited a sled type crash facility at the University 
Of Virginia. It used a sled to mimick the interior portion of a car 
instead of a whole car. The test just finished at the time was seat 
belts as removed from junked cars. These included sun damaged, dirty, 
worn, etc, examples. Even the shredded ones (where the retractor had 
mangled them) were holding well in the tests. It was not the result the 
grad students were expecting! Yes, there was a degredation in holding 
power, but not enough to effect the outcome of injuries in a crash. At 
the time they were testing the effect a crash had on occupants in wheel 
chairs (think transport vans) and how to better secure them.

Frank DuVal

Sethracer at aol.com wrote:

>Hey I finally figured out what to do with old seat belts. Ones that you  
>would never use because of old webbing. (Note - if you have original belts in  
>your Corvair, you are on borowed time!)  - Seth
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