Roll Bar, might finally be defeated!

[1fastredsc]

Yeah, not to keep this dying thread going but i do have the rear diagonal, just not bolted on since my main concern were the front feet. thanks anyway

[aigel]

fastredsc, I have FEET! 3/16 thick. Check them out:



Main reason I am posting is that I am wondering, do your nut plates look square cornered like the ones I have in that picture, or are they trimmed the same way the feet are?

The nut plates you see are replacements from Stable Energies / Safety Devices. They come with the hardware installation kit that I bought.

I will post again once the feet are on the bar. Hope to hear from you about the nut plates.

Cheers, George

[aigel]

Okay, looks like at least one edge has to go on the nut plates. The one that sits horizontal in the car. Are the other ones also cut? The ones that go vertical in the car? I'll hold back with welding the nut plates in for now, but will probably put the feet on tonight.

Cheers, George

[aigel]

For anyone interested.... Got feet on bar.



Stevie Wonder came over to do the welding, so no closeups. Actually, I think his brother must be over in england working for Safety Devices, their welds on the back feet aren't what I'd call cherry either.

One nut plate is ready to be welded in, the other one still needs to be fit. I will wait until I have both sides ready and tack the plates in while the bar is bolted in, so there won't be any hassle with bolts ligning up... I only cut one corner on them, keeping the vertical ones square.

The sills where these nutplates weld to are very nice and thick / stiff. After being in the middle of the install, I believe ths construction is the way to go, instead of bars that bolt through the floor.

Cheers, George

[1fastredsc]

I've been on vacation dude, haven't had any time to play with my toy. Looks good, identicle to what i have. GL with it.

[aigel]

Here are the pics from the final install. Had to elongate two bolt holes on the front feet to help with the install. Otherwise went smooth!

Thanks so much Mike. Catch you later!

George

[1fastredsc]

Looks like it fits a hell of a lot better than my bar. Now it actually fits with the feet flush to the chassis. Stills needs a little persuation, but nothing big. Just to give a little advice to anyone as dumb as i am. When welding to a galvanized chassis make sure it's extremely well ventalated. I only did four tacs on each side and woke up the next day with a splitting headache.

[slope-nz]

1fastredsc, I've read this saga with mounting fear in my heart. I also have a safety devices cage. mine is a 6 point cage with door bars. I never gave it a thought that it might not fit. Does anyone have any positive stories,please,please,please. slope-nz

[banjomike]

Originally posted by unfixed
...(hell with my spelling) ...if you are a ME, you better ...

four years ago I couldn't even spell enginur now I are one!

Mike Benefield, PE

[1fastredsc]

Dont sweat it slope nose, according to the shop that i purchased the bar from, they say this is the first time they've heard of a problem with one of safety devices products. Appearantly i'm an anomoly.

[aigel]

I agree, don't sweat it. I was only *TOLD* that it didn't fit the previous owner's car and that that was the reason it got welded in. It isn't unlikely that the shop that put it in said: "It's going to be $300 to install if we have to put the nut plates, or we can do it for $100 if we weld the front in. You get the idea. I stand by what I said earlier in this thread. I think this is the best bar out there.

George

[ozz]

FastredSC - Not sure you were an anomoly. I started the install of my Saftey Devices cage on Saturday. The fitment with the nut plates and the location that the feet on the main hoop want to land aren't in synch. After "fitting" the nut plates so that I had 95% contact with the logitudinal (no way in hell am I going to 100% contact) the feet are about 1/2" too far inboard on both sides. Either I didn't get the bar back far enough when I put it in so that it would pick up the wider section of the logitudinal (although I tapped it back pretty firmly on both sides with a block of wood and a hammer) or its a fitment problem. To come to think of it, the top of the hoop is just clearing he headliner where the roof starts to bend down so, not sure I could go back any further at all and still get nuts on the bolts for front leg mounts.

Seems like my options are to try to wedge the legs apart and line up the holes while the hoop is in the car or, take it out and try to bend the legs to have a wider stance which was the suggestion of the folks at Stable Energies. Neither seems like a good solution. Wedging it while in the car might work IF i can get enough force rigging a bottle jack or something but, will put the bolts in one hell of shear even at rest holding that tension.

Pulling it out and trying to bend it won't be cake either. I'll need to leave the harness bar mounted so that it doesn't spread apart in that location making it too wide to connect the harness bar later. That means the bend will need to occur at the lower 18 or 24 inces (below the harness bar. Not a lot of leverage there. I think I'll give this a try tonight.

I'm open to any other suggestions but, I don't see many choices at this point.

[aigel]

Gary:

You need to call Stable Energies and tell them that you want to exchange this bar for another. It is obvious that it is a very poor fit from what you describe.

I know a few people running the Safety Devices bar and nobody reported horrible mis-fits like these.

Hope this helps. Stable Energies are a great company and I am sure they will work with you on getting a fitting bar.

George

[ozz]

George,

I spoke with Bob this morning. He told me that they occasionally use a porta-power to get the fitment right, either bending the bar outside the car or in it. And that no two cars are the same, and that the bars can cool differently coming out of the welding jig - yadda, yadda, yadda. Well, I don't have a porta-power in my garage so, with few straps, 2 steel support posts, and a come-along I tried to spread the bars. After a short time it was clear that this method isn't gonna get it. I could move the bars about 1 1/2" apart no more. As soon as tension was released, they spring back. I MAY have gotten 1/4" and after wrestling it back in place, isn't enough.

I'm fearful that I don't have the unit far enough back in the car. By looking at your picture, mine appears to be 1/4 to 3/8" or so forward of yours judging by the position of the foot to the B-pillar. The bend in the foot in your picture appears to be parallel to the edge of the longitudinal. Mine, being forward a bit, kicks away from it by 3/8" or more. No way in hell it's going back any further in the car though. I can get 1 hole in each foot to line up, the other 2 are about 1/2 a hole off. I think I'm going to get the plates welded in and elongate a couple of holes on the feet a bit and try to rig up a porta-power type rig with a bottle jack and 2-by material and see if between the opened holes and some pressure, I can't get the rest to line up. Not what I had hoped for with an SD cage. Par for the course though it seems.

Other than the Elephant Racing products, EVERY other aftermarket bit that I've tried has needed A LOT of "customization" to get it to fit/work properly.

[Wil Ferch]

Aigel :
you say.."You need to call Stable Energies and tell them that you want to exchange this bar for another"...

We did this for a friend's Safety Devices Bar. The rear section was 3 inches off ( ! ). on the diagonal measurements when we couldn't get the darned thing to fit.

Yeppers...same song and dance...we should use a "porta power", etc.....

Of course, it was our 911 body that was out of whack ( as claimed by Stable)...the car was my friend who owns a body shop for goodness' sake...the body was square !

Terrible response from Stable until we contacted "Tom" ( company owner) at Safety Devices in England directly.....

Wil

[1fastredsc]

Since it's steel if you heat it quickly in the area where you need to "modify" the shape, you can avoid throwing other things like the harness bar out of wack. What i did was heat iscolated one small area where i need to twist the foot about 15 degrees out to fit, and since the harness bar fit perfect the way it was, that meant that the twist had to occur under the harness bar mount. Once it started to move, i used a infared heat gun to measure the heat of the heated area, and in small steps over a period of 1/2 hour a cooled it from 800 degrees where it started bending to 300 degrees where i just let the atmosphere cool it. Then repainted the area, and all is good. In retrospect, i should've just bought some sort of a pipe bender and made the damn thing considering the amount of work involved and money spent. Oh well, live and learn.