Pete & Aprille Chadwell wrote:
> Frank Biedermann wrote:
> >For those of you with roll bars on your TR6 (or other convertibles) -
> >where are the mounting brackets for it bolted to? It seems to me that
> >a dodgy way of mounting one is just to bolt it to the parcel shelf
> >behind the seats (not something I would want to do), but surely
> >commercially installed roll-bars would be somehow attached to the
> >frame through the shelf (or am I just being optimistic here)?
>
> Sorry Frank, you're apparently under the impression that something called a
> "roll bar" or "roll-over bar" would actually be designed to prevent serious
> injury if you were to roll your car. How silly of you.
>
> My roll bar, and every other roll bar that I've seen in STREET TR6's are
> simply bolted, with backing plates, to the parcel shelf. I was just about
> to write that it's better than NO roll bar, but I'm not so sure. They are
> generally more for appearance than actual function as far as I'm concerned.
> I'd be interested to hear from other more knowledgeable listers about
> whether ANY roll bar is better than none for safety purposes. I suspect it
> would be, but sometimes these things are counter-intuitive.
>
> Imagine, for example, in a roll-over with one of these wimpy bars... if (or
> when) it collapses, is it going to collapse right onto (into) your noggin?
> Then again, without the bar the EARTH itself will "collapse" into your
> noggin. Take your pick.
>
> Bottom line, buy one or don't, but fer Chrissakes, drive safe! (but have
>fun!)
>
> Pete Chadwell
> 1973 TR6
Having been in a roll-over in a TR-6, I can say that the windscreen frame does a
fairly good job of protecting the occupants. The windscreen frame has heavy
steel
rods that run up the length of the pillars and these are attached to long
bracket/tubes below the dash and these kept the frame from folding down into the
passenger compartment. The car did not have a roll bar and both my passenger
and I
walked away with only minor scrapes and bruises. The car went over on the
driver's
side and then belly up. We were taken to the hospital for x-rays, and I wasn't
around
when the tow truck came. Of course when they rolled the car upright, it was on
the
passenger's side, leaving me with absolutely no usable body panels anywhere on
the
car. :-(
There are competition grade roll bars out there that attach to the frame and
will
offer significantly more protection in a high-speed incident. And just about
all
major cities have race car fabricators who make custom bars. The price for the
added
safety (in addition to the $$$) is that you give up some seat travel rearward,
and
most of the competition bars have diagonals that eat up just about all the
remaining
space behind the seats - but if you really wanted cargo capacity, you'd be
driving a
mini-van anyway.
Regards,
Brian Schlorff '61 TR-4 '64 TR-4 '72 TR-6 '79 Spit
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Power British Check out Power British
371 E. Main St. on the 'net!
Norristown, PA 19401
(610) 270-0505 http://www.powerbritish.com/~britcars
---------------------------------------------------------------------
|