Baby car seat in the van

[sarahandthebear]

Hi all
Sarah is pregnant and in 16 weeks there’s going to be a little explorer coming camping with us in the van. However we want to put the car seat in the back so Sarah can sit at the back with them. We only have lap straps in our 1984 westy. I was wondering if anybody has had seatbelts fitted in the back to secure the car seat and make it safe to transport the little one. Could we even go one step further and get an Isofix base fitted.

[JonB]

Congratulations on the news, we found the van fantastic when our two kids were babies for feeding, changing, sleeping etc (still do).

We've got a caravelle so already have 2 3 point belts in the back. I remember Brickwerks had a kit with belts and mounting plate.

For isofix there are a few threads around using a Ford Focus isofix bracket bolted to the body under the seat. I guess it depends what rear seat and baby seat you have which would determine if its suitable.

One thing I did read up on was the dangers around fitting a 3 point belt which is fed though a cupboard. Seems quite scary.

[slowcoach]

Congratulations!

Yes, isofix bracket from a fo rd focus is the best case scenario. It can be bolted to the chassis underneath the rear bench. As said, depends on your rock n roll bed as to whether it will fit, whether the baby seat will reach through the gap between the cushions. I can try more photos if you need..

[jas915]

Brickwerks do a 3 point seat belt kit. Fitted one to my old van, took a bit of fiddling around with and had to try a selection of babdy seats before we found one that worked ok. Biggest problem was with buckle crunch.

[sarahandthebear]

Thank you all for the replies and that's brilliant news that we can for the base into the westy. I don't suppose any of you have any photographs of one fired to the mounts at all?

[JackE]

I tired to go down the ford focus isofix route but it didn't work for two reasons. 
1st I have a rusty lee bed and the seat fold was too far form the bulkhead for it work 
2nd the height of the seat meant the isofix base leg would not reach the floor. 

In the end we went down the brickwerks kit route for the passenger side and a custom made belt with two buckles for the drivers sides from safety belt services we also visited the in car safety centre who have a great range of seats and who were really helpful in finding what fitted. One thing to note is that the brickwerks seat belt was slightly too short for our car seat so we had to get an extender, the brickwerks seat belt is made by safety belt services, so it might be possible to get a longer seat belt to avoid this problem. 

Other threads for background reading thread 1 thread 2 thread 3

[BambooBilly]

We have a Britax Eclipse car seat which works with a 2 point lap belt as well as 3 point.