Installing new roll cage....need Ideas

[jtdig64]

Just purchased a used Stable Energies 6 point roll cage. No installation material. I am installing it into my 77s..Do any of you know the mounting points and how to drill through the body of the car with little damage..

Thanks for the help..

[J P Stein]

I put a roll cage in my 914 two winters ago and learned a couple useful things along the way.

The first thing was: I'll never do it again....but that's not important, now.

For cutting relatively neat holes : hole saws, the bimetal jobs. They come in sizes
starting about 3/4 inch up to 4 inch. The larger ones need a half inch drill to power them (which will beat the living dogs*** outta ya if it gets away from you.).
The deep hole saws and a drill press will cut real nice half round ends for joining tubes. (see "dog" above)

Mine was an Autopower cage which came with directions.....a sketch of a cage in a VW Rabbit (Golf).....lovely.

The package consisted of a prefabbed roll hoop and 70 lbs of tubing, bent to fit somewhere. Figuring out where it all went was really not that hard. ....just look at the picture :=)

I re-engineered most of their mounting points and added 4 more
but a description of that would probably be no help to you, other than what I made is better(stronger) than what they had in mind.
I felt free to modify as I pleased.

Be careful while welding. I managed to shrink one door opening to the point where the door wouldn't close......crap....cut it loose here, gimme that porta power. I finally had to have it put on a frame jig to make that last weld. 914s are pretty floppy (but not mine, any more), so this may not be a problem for you.

I enjoyed the services of a very competent weldor, a buddy down the street. He has since gotten even. This is no place to practice.

Pics available upon request.

[makaio]

I don't know anything about Stable Energies, but I just finished installing a used Autopower in my 911 2 weeks ago.

First, before you drill any holes, make sure you know what is on the other side. You don't want to find out you just drilled through one of the oil lines, or something else.

Second, use a center punch so your drill bit doesn't walk on you. This ensures your holes will line up. And use a pilot drill, like 1/4 inch or so, this will make it much easier to drill the larger holes.

Third, get a buddy, or someone else to give you a hand putting the cage in the car. This will help prevent doing any damage to the body or interior.

Fourth, remove any sound deading material between the mounting plates and the chasis. Most racing bodies require metal to metal mounting.

I hope some of this helps. I try and post pictures of my install when I get home from work.

[emcon5]

This reminds me of a neat little tool I saw on "Crank and Chrome" on TNN this weekend. It was a center punch with a collar that fit the hole the bolt went through. They were using it to mark where to drill for the door hinges on a hot rod of some sort. Anyway, they lined up the door and duct taped it in place, then used this punch thing to make sure the holes they drilled were the exact center of the bolt holes in the hinge. A bolt-in roll cage sounds like a good job for this tool.

Tom

[katigbr]

I also just completed installing a Safety Designs bolt-in 6 point cage in my car. The process is fairly straightforward but does require you to assemble and disassemble the cage to mark the mounting locations properly and weld in the mounting plates.

Every cage and car is different, making a standard installation instructions based on measurements difficult.

Follow this link to a great rollcage installation description from our club members.

http://www.rennsport.ca/auspuff/Infoswappen/roll_cage_installation.htm

There is no real magic other than making sure that the cage is sitting flat on the tub when marking the mounting points. If you are using mounting plates that are welded to the tub and then bolted to the cage then you may want to add a spacer of equivalent thickness during the trial fit to simulate the change in cage positioning due to the plate thickness (ask me how I know that this is important).

If you want some pics, let me know and I'll send some your way. I've got the plates welded and cage bolted in but still shows the process involved.

Regards,
Rick