well, getting killed in a car accident would really piss me off. I have been in one too many. (I have no periphial in my right eye, things have taken my by surprise and so far I have wrecked EVERY car I owned (including my tib) on that side.

 

Tell you what, if you break 1/8 inch steel and grade 8 bolts in an accident, you have more to worry about than your seats coming loose. How about your head not being attached to your neck, for one. Second, your seatbelt detaching from the car. Go to your local steel shop, get some 1"x1/8"x4' flat steel. Should only cost about $5-$10 bucks for mild steel. You can paint it, chrome it, powdercoat it, whatever you like. If you have access to a bandsaw and a drill press, you can do it in 20 minutes. Otherwise, take the measurements first and the shop will probably do cuts and holes for about $1 a cut/hole for labor. C'mon guys, it should not be this hard.

 

1/8 inch? that is different.. most of the "h"s I have seen look to be at least half that gage.. possibly into the realm of thick sheetmetal..

 

Well, 1/16 is pretty close to 16 gage. I hope no one has used that, as I can easily bend that with my bare hands. 3/32 would probably be ok, but I would just stick with 1/8 inch. It is cheap and will take just about anything I can throw at it. Oh yeah, I'm a beast too.

EDIT:

And before I have anyone stating that regular brackets are made of 1/16, remember that regular brackets are channels, (roughly U shaped), which inherently have much more strength in their design. We are using flat metal that can bend across the short thickness, therefore it should be much thicker.

 

You have that right, Drafter.. even sheet metal gets stronger when you put a crease in it.