Custom roll cage, ideas please

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The Mrs was away this weekend, so I took over the spare bedrrom and finaly made a start. Below are a few images of the progress so far. When i've finished I'll do a propper write up so others can have a go as well.

The main bars are exactly 500mm long (which is lucky, as that's exatly how long the alu I bought is!), i've made it larger than the standard cage to try and get a bit mre protection. Though the first photos show it fitting over the standard cage, this was just so that I could get the angles right.

I did all of the bends with a plumbers hand bending jig, took a bit of force, but seemed to work well and the alu wasn't stressed too badly. I'm Brazing it together with HTS2000 rods and a blowtorch.

The only issuee i've had so far are:

1. brazing the next joint without the heat soaking away into a joint i've already done and screwing it up (I may make some of the horizontals bolted joints if i can't sort this).

2. Tapping threads in alu is a b###h, as the tap keeps getting gunked up with alu. I've also broken 2 drills and had to fill in 2 threads with weld as they got messed up by the tap. If anything, I think that making decent threads in Alu will be the secret to making this project work.

All in all, i'm hapy with how it's going, especialy because all I have are hand tools! got no time to do any more until next weekend, which should give me some time to think of a solution to the brazing and tapping problems.

Note that my repair on the pipe didn't hold, so I'm probably not going to weld up the meft side until I know what i'm replacing it with, probably JetPro.


Fitting and bending of main bars
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Design so far without horizontal brace and rear triangulation
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its looking good there ........the secret to tapping alloy is to use

parafin on the tap ;)

have you thought how your going to drill the holes to hold the cage

onto the rear shock tower........it maybe best to take the shock tower off

and use it as the template ....drill through from the back with the bars

attached

K....
 
not got to thinking that far Trebor, but I recon that'd do it. I'll be drilling a clat for the screw head as well

I'll have a go with parafin at the weekend... had better get the right size tap drill this time too.....
 
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BrawnFG said:
not got to thinking that far Trebor, but I recon that'd do it. I'll be drilling a clat for the screw head as well
Click to expand...

i made a peg drill to do the counter bore for the screw heads.....you could even drill and tap

the alloy bars 4mm and open out clearance holes in the shock tower and put the screws in

from the back

K....
 
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Trebor said:
the alloy bars 4mm and open out clearance holes in the shock tower and put the screws in from the back

K....
Click to expand...

I like it, that'll be a neat solution. may be a sod to do the screws up with the engine in, but the cage is big enough for me to install the engine with the cage fitted.
 
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