I am on my third roll bar. I started with an Autopower roll bar, went to a
single hoop which looked really cool but would not protect a passenger in
the event of a rollover. And now I have fabricated a roll bar. My concern
with the stock Autopower roll bar are the attachments to the car. While the
front struts of the bar are situated over a sandwiched section of sheet
metal, the rear struts are secured to a single thickness of sheet metal.
I ended up fabricating brackets that I welded to the "frame" and then
attached the front struts to these brackets, running bolts through the sheet
metal of the body. For the rear struts, I welded 1/8" sheet metal plates,
5" x 5", molding the plates to the inside contour of the sheet metal of the
car. I welded nuts on the back side of the plates before welding the
plates. Of course, I drilled holes in the sheet metal so the welded nuts
would not be obvious.
I can remove the roll bar and there is no evidence of the roll bar except
for the holes I drilled for the bolts that attach the front struts to the
fabricated brackets and also the sheet metal plates.
While this may sound confusing, it was even more confusing to figure out how
to do everything.
----- Original Message -----
From: "James Barrett" <jamesbrt@mindspring.com>
To: "Chris Thompson" <cthompson@rrinc.com>
Cc: <tigers@autox.team.net>
Sent: Sunday, April 21, 2002 5:38 PM
Subject: Re: Gentleman Racing
> Chris,
> Is "NASA" a typo? As for the roll bar, I had the same problem.
> Try lowering your seat first. On mine there are two mounting locations
> at the front and a swinging bar spacer at the rear. If that doesn't help
> enough, try going to a fiberglass racing seat with little or no padding
> and tilted back as much as you can stand. i.e. do not raise your bar,
> lower your head.
>
>
>
> At 08:50 PM 4/15/2002 -0400, you wrote:
> >I'm wanting to take my MK1a out on the track at NASA events, and rules
say
> >that the roll bar must be above helmet height for obvious reasons. I
have
> >the AutoPower bar, and it's too low. Anything higher seems like it would
> >disable the top. What are you all doing?
> >
> >Any other recommendations/mild mods for the track?
> >
> >Chris
> >B382000331
> >
> James Barrett Tiger II 351C and others
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