Sunday, December 9, 2012

Tubular works

Fitting a roll cage is nothing familiar to me. Cost and time wise I think there is really no excuse on making it by yourself. Still, new things give me the thrills and I ended up buying a few gadgets to help me with the task. I believe there are a few "form combs" on the market for different size pipes if one decides to fit the pipes the hard way. I took an el cheapo short cut and got a Woodward Fab tube notcher. Must have been something around 100 e for the tool and "experts" on the web say it's pretty much bs. I must say first thoughts on the tool are very positive. Of course there are fancier solutions on the market but as I wasn't planning on making a business out of cage fitting this looks to be more than good enough. One does need a strong hand held drill machine that revs around 800 rpm or so. The tool uses regular hole saw bits available on most tool shops. Below are some images of after we got started. I'm very pleased that the main arc sits just behind the b-post. front arcs could have gone slightly forward but then there would have been some more dash painting issues so this will have to do.

The cage is an old mild steel set made by former company Hewiset. All in all, the fit is quite good and tight. Bender was needed to get the fit up to FHRA specs. Original dimensions on the main arch would have required mounting straight to heater channel and we were aiming to mount them on basic 3mm plates on the floor pan.




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