W113 Child seat

[CWest]

I'm keen to fit a baby seat to my Pagoda and would love to hear any advice or guidance from fellow 113 owners. Someonemust have faced similar challenges and cracked it...

My car is...
W113 250SL (an early 250 from '67)
Importantly for this discussion it is a California coupe - ie. it has a bench seat across the back - and no softtop. So yes there is space and a platform to place a baby seat on with the baby seat facing forward. My challenge is really how to suitably and safely fix the baby seat in place??

I'm thinking there are 2 options (in theory)....
1= Install a rear 3 point seat belt
2 = Retrofit ISOFIX hooks to attach an isofix  babyseat to. (This would require welding and/or bolting these hooks to a suitably secure component of the chasis.)

The second option sounds like the better one to me at present.

I have seen on some of the Mercedes parts diagrams that lap style belts were an option for the rear bench & cross seat. The attached picture is an example of such an extract from a mercedes parts catalogue (but I only have the image nothing further) and indeed this diagram doesn't really translate to what I see when I look at the car too well either!!


Any advice, thoughts or experience greatly welcomed.

[JamesL]

I was wondering if you'd turn up here.....(saw your post on the MB club only yesterday). Welcome aboard

Ian was right - quickfitsbs is a good place to start. Kevin O'Keeffe is also worth a chat as he has done all sorts of work on interiors.

I was wondering about the same for my car (not a Cal Coupe) and was wonding if a 5 pt belted seat could be strapped into the middle of the back shelf (in my case, need to remove the current kinder seat) so legs can go between the front passengers. I spoke to quickfit about this and they said they have done similar (at about £5k including re-upholstery of the back etc ec BUT Kevin told me that getting a 5pt harness seat for the bigger child is getting more difficult

Seeing as you have the Cal Coupe, surely someone will be able to weld in some 3 pt - or even harness - fixings.

http://www.sl113.org/forums/index.php?topic=693.0 The search tool on here is (now) excellent

I have parked the issue for the past summer but have a car fit for two, not three....

And then there's the issues of safety in a roll etc.

[CWest]

thanks Tosh

RE: worries about roll cage protection...

As I live in Ireland - where rain can never be ruled out it means the hard top only my Pagoda is pretty much a permanent feature which is at least 1 less concern.

My father and I retrofitted some front seat belts into his XK140 recently (which as a 50's car had no belts at all). The parts come from SBS but in this case my leaning is actually towards putting in ISOFIX brackets rather than a seat belt. As I understand it ISOFIX would entail two U shaped brackets at the bottom of the seat to which an ISOFIX child seat would then attach. So the critical thing here would then be ensuring that my retro-fitted brackets are very secure as this is the only thing connecting the child seat to the car. So making sure they're welded to something solid is my main question for now (I think) - hence I was very keen on the apparent fixing points for seat belts on this Merc parts diagram (as that should provide a solid point to anchor/weld to) - only problem is that I can't see how this parts diagram corresponds to the car!!

As an aside I think all cars made in the last 5 years or so have ISOFIX fittings but I guess I'd get ISOFIX brackets as parts for a modern car. (I'll probably do the same to to my daily family car - an 2003 audi A4 - as this doesn't have the ISOFIX brackets as standard but does have bolt holes to attachthem as an Audi "option").

Keen to hear from anyone who's tried this - will keep you posted on my progress in due course (currently I'm in research mode, and our baby is only 6months old so his "next" car seat will be needed at around 9 months at which stage I'm hoping to buy an ISOFIX seat that I can also by then use in the Pagoda).

[JamesL]

You probably need some pics of the behind seat area on a California Coupe. Looking at the normal "parts explosions" (eg on SLS) they are generally the roadster and few show the relevant piece of the car. That said, you're likely to be welding to the bulkhead between thge boot/trunk and interior which I assume offers structural support to the car....

You may want to ask the folk at Roger Edwards motors for their thoughts. They may have done this - or at least know enough to give you a good indication as to it's viability. As might T&D Heaney
http://www.mercedesrestoration.com/tdheaney.asp?id=default