I think I get what you are driving at.  That might work.  Problem is
that the seatbelt bracket has a 90degree bend in it.  Caught me by
surprise too.  Not sure why.

I was thinking of getting a piece of metal made to act as an adaptor.
It would bolt into the original location, and have a hole about 2"
further down that I could bolt the female end to.  It would need to be
bent to allow room behind it for a nut for the seatbelt  and to clear
some of the corrugation of the firewall.

Still, the easiest would be a shorter female seatbelt piece.  I was
surprised to see the regular vanagon and the westy have the same length
for the female piece.  Thought I was onto something there.  But alas, no.

I just tried using the left side buckle with the right side male end,
and that helped.  Still, not 100% tight, but a bit better than before.

...Markus

Bob Stevens wrote:
> Markus,
> What do you think of just getting a piece of flat 1/8" steel and
> re-mounting the female belt against
> the firewall under the bench? Use the steel piece on top of the belt,
> put the "new bolt" through both
> so the steel piece disperses the pressure from the bolt across the
> width of the belt.
> Easy way to "shorten" that belt.
>
> bob
>
> On Sun, Feb 14, 2010 at 12:09 PM, Markus Benne <mbenne@m-bass.com
> <mailto:mbenne@m-bass.com>> wrote:
>
>     Hi,
>
>     Sorry, the issue is kind of hard to describe.
>
>     Yeah, the male part can be tightened no problem, but that does not
>     change the location of the buckle and that is what interferes with
>     a corner on the car seat.  The buckle is in exactly the wrong
>     spot.  A shorter strap on the female side would help.  Most modern
>     cars have the buckle right near the base of the seat where the
>     seat base meats the backrest.  The bus has the buckle about 4"
>     past the seat base/backrest location.
>