Roll Bars Final fit

 Removed the cover plates as not happy with the machine marks and using Autosol and trusty Dremel now a lot better .

Applied a little bit of silicon to the under side of the rubber and then finally bolted then down .

To finish off put in the eyebolts for the seatbelts and the head rest bars .

Test fitted the eye bolts to see how they would sit and by moving them about managed to get all but 1 to line up ,that one need a bit of carful filing on the roll bar to make it line up .

Once sorted applied stud lock to the eye bolts and the headrest bolts and secured.

Stud lock applied 

Roll Bars part 7

 On to the last bit of roll bar fitting definitely  a 2 man job  and one that again needs to look right ,the holes are pre marked with 3 dimples to aid drilling,

 Had to be aware of were to place the hole in order to be able to get to the back of the bolts .After much deliberation we decided on on hole in the center, so marking bewteen the roll bars to give a centerline drilled the holes trough the rubber and body in one hit .found the easiest way to do this was by using the flex attachment of the dremel with a 3.2mm drill .

bracket in position ready to be drilled 

drilled and bolted down 

thought that was the final fix but not happy with the covers as the machine marks can be seen and not 100% sure that the rubber will seal so going to take them out again to polish and apply some sealant  Part 8 should be the final fix .

 

Roll Bars Part 6

 After much debate on what to fill the bars with went for the original idea of foam like everyone else ,Found some high density expanding foam from screwfix ( other brands available !!!) and used that . 

first wet the roll bars and then discovered that the tube is not linked at the weld so needed to fill that bar separately .

Used an extension tube on the foam to make sure we got all the tube filled ,sorry no pics as such a messy job .then put the bolts back in to protect the threads .

 

Once this had dried is was back in the car again to check the final fit in order to gat the bars to sit parallel had to place 2 washers under the rear bar on the left hand side .

I have opted for the single head rest support which needs to be drilled in the rear downpipe .

using a piece of string we were able to find the mid point so the head rest would look central.

Drilling them was an absolute nightmare ,Tried my cheap drill first unsurprisingly no luck .closely followed by the drills I bought at Stoneleigh again with limited success,then after much abuse from Steve he arrived with his "decent drills" and sorted .

 happy with that but unfortunately managed to scratch the top of the roll bars, so needed to take them out again to be re polished, Huge thank you to John at Alpha circle (Grimsby)  for sorting them out for me ,   

and so 

 its on to fitting the rubber seals and cover plates .

The outside cover plate needs bending to follow the contour of the car and after  much thought bending it round a scaffold tube seems to work the best ( need to remember to bend it first before drilling the 4 mm hole to secure it other wise the ring will kink on the hole. 

bent and ready to be bolted down .

Roll Bars part 5

Once we had a tap and cleaned the holes out we were good to go to bolt down the bars.
This is no where as easy as it sounds as they want to spring all over ,Found the best way was to fit the inside long bolt first and then using ratchet straps and skill got the other bolts in .
Once fitted there needs to be a clearance hole for the grommet and the posh stainless plate which according to other blogs is 5mm .
Using a 5mm allen key to draw round the bars they were removed again and out came the dremmel to make the holes bigger .


holes now 5mm bigger and bars dropped in

A good day now waiting to fill with foam or something else (not sure yet ) and then grommets and plates .
At least the car can come off the axle stands finally .










Roll bars Part 4

After repeating the process for the other three holes we were ready for a trial fit and shock horror they didn't fit ,

last of the big hole before the trail fit

After 5 mins of panic it transpired that the roll bars were not parallel .Panic over and we needed a way of stretching the bars apart , settled on a trolley  jack which worked quite well

using a trolley jack to make the bars parallel again

after this bit of fettling the bars go in very nicely .

roll bars fitted the wrong way round

Now comes the hardest part ,Drilling the 3rd hole, First issue is that the third leg bolts on to a bracket which can be moved so the stud idea would not work ,next we measured the leg of the roll bar and discovered that it wasn't in the middle  so using triangle theory wont work either  After discussions with Steve as to the best way we settled on placing the roll bar the right way round and balancing it on the top of the body using a sprit level to make sure it was upright in both planes .At this point we would draw round the roll bar to give us an approx  place and then drill a 2mm hole and again used the plumb bob to see were this was in relation to the hole .
Amazingly we were less than 2 mm out ! result so out with the hole saw .


roll bars dropped in the holes

Next came to trying to bolt them down , tried the bolts in the holes (1/2 unf)  and they wouldn't  start , all stop until a tap is sourced .

Roll bars part 3

Another day and on to the bottom nipping bit ,drilling the back of the body . Looked at other blogs and idea is to climb in the bloody boot again and use the plumb bob to guess were the hole should be ,wasn't looking forward to this at all ,
Steve the genius came up with a plan and that was to sit some 12mm stud bar with a nunt on the roll bar fitting and providing it was level we should be close .

Steve's copyrighted tool

Drilled the hole were the stud touched the roof and moment of truth checked with a plumb bob though the hole .

impressive Steve

as you can see bloody close !! this idea was then passed on to the remaining front holes .
flushed with success we decided to drill the body with the hole saw .
after first checking that all four holes were in line with a piece of string and they wre the same distance rom the cabin
went for a 50mm hole saw and drilled it backwards to stop the gell coat chipping .

first hole

   Enough for today wine o clock.

Roll bars part 2

After the 2 front hole had been drilled it was time to open them out to accept the roll hoops
The hoops are 51 mm Diameter and reading blogs the ideal bottom hole to allow for movement is 55mm

Started by drilling with a hole saw to 50 mm, however I didn't want to drill with a standard hole saw for 2 reasons first is its a 6mm drill going in a 10mm hole so ahs the potential to go out of line and second didn't want the drill to take any of the powder coating off the chassis as its was going though .
Hit on the idea of putting some 6mm stud bar instead of the drill and wrapping it with adhesive tape to make it appear 10mm.
Worked like a treat .

hole saw with the modified centre ( after drilling 4 holes )

 Happily drilled the 4 holes to 50 mm which gave me the opportunity to dremmel the holes out to 55 mm and correct any errors .

first hole done

looking down the hole I could see that I was a little bit off centre but can be corrected

second hole note slightly out

Then came the fun bit how to dremel them out to 55mm and make the hole central, hard enough but even worse when there is no room , getting in the boot was fun but getting out another matter entirely .
again came up with an idea got a 12mm bolt and wedged it in some adhesive which had a diameter of 55mm ( eventually ) .

home made tool (note the back hole is smaller 44mm)

this seemed to work and filed the holes until the tool dropped in the hole result .

tool in action  

all four holes now 55mm . time for a glass or three

Roll bars part 1

Been putting off this job but can't any more so ,
First job is to level  up the chassis .
This is important as once the bottom holes are drilled the only to transpose the measurement to the top bit is with a plumb bob .
Reading other blogs they say the chassis is what is needed to be level not the body ( which I am not sure about but hey ho )  The rear half of the chassis was the most important as this is where the bars are mounted. Finding flat areas of the chassis to check the level,was a challenge! Finally done and doubly happy as the body is showing level as well.



Chassis sat level eventually  

The roll over bars are the two stainless steel hoops, the saddles/brackets and the fixings.

Roll over bars, saddles and bolts

The saddles/brackets are made of steel and needed to be painted before fitting however I sent them away when the frame was powder coated so done job.

 An 8mm hole was drilled up through the inner front two mounting holes mounting  of the chassis into the boot floor. I used a 90 degree chuck adapter for the drill on each side.

one of the holes viewed from the boot

front hole drilled up

Happy with that so far next job is to open the hole out but another day .