Hi folks Travelling with 2 teenagers in the back, I thought I should do what I could do address the lack of head and neck support, both from a comfort and safety point of view. It's obviously not possible to achieve modern levels of crash protection, but reducing whiplash in a bump would seem doable. Since the fixing has to be on the back face of the backrest, you'll need some headrests that project forward as far as possible. I bought mine on eBay, surplus Merc 3 series I think, about £30 for the pair. Some 2mm steel plate and square tubing. Exact dimensions depend on the spacing and diameter of your headrest supports, but you want the tubing inner width to be wider than the supports. Then weld the tube sections to the plate. Most headrest supports are on an arc, so you have to do it as two sections rather than a single tube. I MIG welded and then as my grinder was broken, epoxied over the top to get a decent finish! I have no idea whether just epoxy might be strong enough to do the job. Then got some PTFE tube of similar outer diameter to the metal tube and hammered it in. Carefully drilled out the inner hole until a snug fit on the headrest support. Then painted.
(continued) Bolted through backrest with four M8 coachbolts each. And finally with a matching cover from Delilah's (alternatively you could spray them with Vinylcote or similar). Will take a photo of that tomorrow.
looks great. i looked at doing something similar a couple of yrs back but didn't get very far with the project. its harder then it appears when you properly start looking at it - the headrests need to be tight enough that they won't slide out in a crash, but still easy enough to pop them out when you need to drop the bench for sleeping, plus the bracketry you add to the seat needs to not conflict with anything as the seatback drops down. i was considering putting the brackets on the "foam" side with the tubes popping up through the foam. looks like you did a great job there.
And here is the final item (bed recovered by Delilah's, who also made matching covers for the headrest). The square tubes are about 2cm and if the whole bracket is positioned 1cm below the top edge of the seat, it clears the bed cushion quite easily when folded. The headrests require a firm sustained pull to get them out and don't sink down in use - the fit can basically be adjusted by gently drilling out the PTFE tubes until the grip is how you want it.
