Rollin', Rollin', Rollin'...or hopefully not!

The title actually comes from one of Clint Eastwood's early starring roles in "Rawhide", a TV series about cowboys from around the time of my birth in '66.  My folks must have loved it because it popped into mind as I thought about "roll bar".  I have a different rolling in mind however.  After I slid BB across a ditch, I realized that, had that been a bit deeper, I might have flipped.  My skull is tough but it would have folded under BB's 2000lbs (no offense, BB!).  Also, and more to the point, one needs a roll bar to run at track nights in SCCA.  So, I'll will do what it takes to get on the track!

That looks like this:

That is as close as I could find to the SCCA rule book.  I'm thinking if I slide sideways down a hill, and start to roll over, this tall bar will catch me halfway and I will watch the slide with glee!  Hopefully, it won't come to that but this is certainly conservative.

Now comes the pedestrian, but important, installation process.  This involves drilling and bolting into 16 holes.  "Piss work, Guv!" as any Brit would opine but a closer examination of the rules (and, TBH, the rusty condition of the unibody) renders some question as to how to comply with the rules in this, likely, totally unique case!

I decided on weld nuts for the main support into the unibody rails.  The wheel well mounts have a reinforcing plate.  I thought the weld nuts would be difficult and the wheel well bolts easy, as they had matched up before.  Sadly, it was the reverse.  I was able to locate the weld nuts with a special marker which I fabricated.  My usual procedure would be to use a drill bit that just fits in the hole and drill a center point.  Then follow up with a pilot drill and the final size drill.  But in this case, the roll bar blocks straight access to almost all the holes.  So I turned this little plug with a nipple on the end.  It's a slip fit into the hole.  You dip the nipple in white paint and slide it in and it leaves a mark in the center.

Happy to report that after welding, all of those holes lined up perfectly!  Below you can see the weld nuts in position:

I'm not going to show the weldments here out of embarrassment.  It could be that my wire feeder gave up or the wire is corroded (very likely since it's been sitting for 2 years) but I couldn't keep a consistent arc going.  That's an awful feedback loop with auto-darkening glasses.  The arc strikes, they darken, the arc quits, you can't see...  They remind me of one of my favorite lines from a Hagerty magazine article "Some of my welds started to look good...In the same way that some parts of a Twinkie are real food..."  Anyway, they pass the hammer test.  I have no doubt that, as stated in SCCA rules, they will "bear the impact of rolling over sideways and the fore-aft load of sliding upside down across the ground."  Not that I think such an unhappy chain of events is possible!

So the new part went well.  It was, however, a different story on the "mating" parts that came with the bar.  The rear facing brace bolts to the wheel well.  And, since that is just one layer of sheet metal, one needs a backing plate below the wheel well to reinforce things.  These plates were included but somehow the holes did not line up.  It's a little crazy 3D on a curvy wheel well so I get it.  A bit of drill bit art later and they all lined up!

Then came carpet trimming.  Not as easy as expected but nothing ever is!

All in all, I think she looks good for her age!  Which is also my age, and for better or worse, no one is installing things to keep me from from rolling over!

We'll keep on having #funwithcars and hope you all enjoy your brand of fun!