I've got a customer project in the shop that has a bolt in roll cage, which has been welded in. It had padding on the tubes when it came in, but I had to remove the padding and found these nasty bends in the pipe. I don't like the look of these bends, but what kind of experience do you all have with them? Is this against any racing body rules?

That will not pass tech down here. The bends can not be collapsed like that.

Those tubes are yielded and would be worthless in the event of a crash.

Ouch. Wrong way to cheap out. Totally compromised the strength of those bends.

Welding a pre-shaped arc in between the straight pieces would have been a better way to cut costs than that!

That's what I was thinking...

Glad to know I'm not way off base.

Ya, really ... hopefully those will be coming out of the car to be replaced with new tubing! Looking at the pics, even the tubing looks weird, like it's hot rolled ERW or something (totally sub-standard for a roll cage) ...

Scot

Cut them out and put in a proper cage, or send the guy down the road. You don't want your name on that.

I don't think so. I've seen the car. Right now, the only thing preventing it from folding into half is the roll cage, however bad it may be.

The front of the longs is completely rusted away on that car. And by that i mean GONE. That's what salty winter roads will do to a 914.

What about the rules of natural selection? Is he an organ donor?

He bought it that way ... It's a real /6.

Depending on what he paid for it, i think that might make him a smart person ...

Actually...........

Nice work Mark. Save it!
I wonder if adding gussets to the inside of the rollbar curves would be worthwhile hackage in this case. (Maybe not code for race rules, but certainly fix the strength issues). There are some beautiful examples of roll bar gussets out there (oogle Google).

leave the cage in to fix the rust, then remove the cage. No big deal.

Looks crooked ...

It's a feature.

We're pulling the cage out.

Here's a couple more 'treasures' we uncovered today while considering the options.

LOL... that was a tough decision!

Might want to think about removing your watermark from those photos. That is ugly enough for me to not even want my name associated with call it bad should my association with it be taken out of context (as often happens on the internet). Seriously though what are people thinking when they build cages like this I certainly hope the PO didn't pay to have this put in.

Good point!

On a side note... I had some killer work done on a custum roll cage by the swell guys at "Original Customs"! Check it out!

Olav, is that you?

I know a guy in Europe with a killer 914 jig he could send it to for repair.

At first I thought of suggesting that you gusset the crappy bends but after seeing the last photos I say that there's no good part of the cage at all.
Welding anything else to that would be like putting lipstick on a pig.

Exactly.

If I had seen those last shots sooner I wouldn't have mentioned gusseting.

Should have known though... I am picturing the builder with a torch, heating some old pipe red hot and bending it. Then cobbing some turkey crap welds to "tie it in."

Aaannyway... Good news is, Mark has cleaned it up.

I'd sooner f*ck the pig than drive that car at speed.

OMG!

SCCA GCR
1. One (1) continuous length of tubing shall be used for the main
hoop member with smooth continuous bends and no evidence
of crimping or wall failure. The radius of bends in the roll cage
hoop (measured at centerline of tubing) shall not be less than
three (3) times the diameter of the tubing. Whenever possible,
the roll cage hoop should start from the floor of the car, and, in
the case of tube frame construction, be attached to the chassis
tubes by means of gussets or sheet metal webs with support
tubes beneath the joints to distribute the loads. It is recommended
that gussets be used.

why are you guys so hard on pigs? they are fine tasty creatures. the pig did not weld that cage in there. leave the pig alone or Ill calll the NPDOA

haha that is funny