hardtop & rollcage
Had a hell of a time trying to find a hardtop on the west coast. Ended up purchasing a brand new hardtop for a 900-series 5-ton, which is a bit wider than the deuces and the 800-series 5-ton trucks. Shouldn't be too difficult to cut it down to the right width and on the upside, I'll have an extra-large rear window. Think I'll offset to the passenger's-side by taking the width out of the passenger's-side of the hardtop.
After I fit the new hardtop, it will be time to start building the rollcage. Want to do that while the cab is empty, and before it's mounted. Started posting about this in a
thread about rollbars on the steelsoldiers forum, but might as well copy/paste/edit and add it to this thread.
Disclaimer: I know I know, this is pirate4x4, but a lot of people that are following this project aren't hardcore offroad enthusiasts.
In addition to putting rollcages in all of my off-road vehicles, I'm the type of person that would put a rollcage in a sedan, minivan, or just about anything else on four wheels. Think about the fantastic crashes we've seen racecar drivers walk away from, and then consider how many people die in relatively low-speed traffic accidents. Most of the cars on the road aren't nearly as safe as they could be. But building a race-quality rollcage is
expensive ($3-5,000 minimum) and most people don't want to deal with the inconvenience. Personally, I don't want to go out like that (traffic collision).
This is my daily-driver. I built that rollcage to survive cartwheeling through the desert at 80mph+, so I feel pretty safe in that truck on-road too.
And I feel reasonably safe in mah deuce. We're probably not too likely to roll these vehicles if we drive them responsibly. It's the blowout, brake failure, or some other kind of catastrophic mechanical failure that I worry about most. Also concerned about the real possibility of a low-speed flop off-road. Can see myself getting myself into situations where that's always a real possibility. The height of the M109 box on my truck would probably protect me in most cases, but then I went and added that cabover rack. Sure don't want that thing to come crashing down into the cab.
So I'm going to build a rollcage for Mah Deuce. Nothing too crazy. Not going to attach the rollcage to the frame because the cab is mounted on springs. Just going to try to make the cab a little bit more crush-proof. If the cab separates from the chassis, so be it. The seats and harnesses will be mounted to the rollcage, so I'll launch with the escape capsule.
Took some rough dimensions (old cab w/soft-top) and whipped-up these SolidWorks models. Here are a few rough sketches to show you guys what I've been thinking about. Not really any more complicated than a rollcage that you might expect to see in a Jeep. Just a little bigger tubing. Not a whole lot of room to go with anything much bigger than 3" diameter tubing, so that's what I'm using for all the perimeter tubes in these models. Will have to pay to have the tubing bent because my bender/dies only go up to 2". Might even look into having these tubes CNC-bent and laser-notched. Would sure beat having to make some of those
tricky compound notches by hand.
If anybody wants to download these CAD files to take a look at the 3D models, you can open/view them with a free program called eDrawings (
download it here). It's made by Solidworks, so it's totally safe to download and use. You can spin the 3D models around, take measurements, make notes, comments, etc. It can be really helpful in collaborative discussions like this, where it's sometimes hard to visualize what someone it trying to communicate without 'seeing' it.
Version 1 is about as simple as it gets. Every rollcage starts with a good perimeter cage, and they con't have to be complicated. You could even connect the A-pillar hoop to the B-pillar hoop with straight tubes, but that would eat into precious headroom. Even a simple rollcage like this should provide some measure of additional safety in a low-speed flop.
V1 Solidworks file (right click -> download / save as)
Version 2 just shows a more elegant method of joining tubes. Notching tubes to make joints like these is VERY time consuming, but it creates a super strong with clean, flowing lines, no matter what angle you're looking at it from. Not sure how much that really matters to anyone in a Deuce, where you're not likely to ever even see it (unless you're running around topless). Might look out of place on a MV, almost too pretty. But still, probably my favorite way to make these types of joints.
V2 Solidworks file (right click -> download / save as)
Version 3 is where I've left-off (continuation of Version 2). Just starting to think about cross-bracing. The problem is, I hate compromises. I'd like to build a race-quality cage, but I don't want to make this vehicle any more impractical than it already is, and I don't want to completely destroy the look of the stock interior. So I'm going to settle for 'better than nothing' in this case. I might make a simple bolt-in cage, but I'll probably end up cutting into the body and the dash just a little bit, so I can make the cage fit tighter and look cleaner. Either way, I'm going to try to keep the visible tubing to a minimum. Thinking about cutting the plates out of the door openings though, and replacing them with tubing kind of like what I've shown here in Version 3. Could always plate-over them again, and make it look more stock-ish...
V3 Solidworks file (right click -> download / save as)
