Roll Bar

[gentilepiano]

Is there a company out there that manufactures a roll bar for an 88 ?
preferably one that fits under a soft and hardtop, with flanges to mount retractable shoulder belts.
Thanks

[1961 109 WAGON]

i have one if you are close to where i live , no seatbeat mounts though

[SeriesShorty]

I saw that Big Sky Rover claims to have them. I've never bought anything from them so I can't give any other details. No prices are listed.

On the other hand, a local fab shop or speed shop could fab one up easily for you and spec it for seatbelt mounts as well. And it's always a warm fuzzy feeling to put money back into your own community. It'd probably end up cheaper than driving a gazillion miles to pick on up or ship one.

I got lucky and got mine for free from a friend. It's a basic roll bar but I'm gonna have a local shop add a little custom work on it to better suit my purpose. Thinking a horizontal headache bar that I could mount some headrests too. A little whiplash protection would be a good thang.

[1961 109 WAGON]

there are no marking, nor do i know who made it, and its not homemade. it came from overseas, it was on a 88 with that ifor williams top over it.

[ShootingCar]

I bought my 88 from ECR and they had built a roll bar for it back in '98. But it was made for either a soft top or a pick up cab, which is what mine came with. When I tried to put a hard top on it, it was too wide and had to be removed. I just had a local Model T builder make me a new four post roll bar with longitudinal bars connecting them at top and bottom. I had him put in corner plates in each of the four joints for rigidity and for mounting the seat belts in. He also installed plates for mounting my inertia seat belts for the front seats that were there before and mounted to the ECR roll bar. I already had a forward facing jeep rear seat and he mounted it and installed the seat belts to a reinforcing plate underneath. He also added additional struts from the frame up to the roll bar mounting base plates and used gasket material to isolate the plates both top and bottom from the body. We used stainless bolts for everything. I had a friend powder coat it in an anodized silver (galv.) color and it just got done on Wed. The seat belts with dynamic retractors, and shoulder belts are working great and it is a really nice installation. I got some good ideas from this site and from ECR's Island 88 Roll Bar that they made as well as from Ike (Leafsprung) here. I figure I have probably about $950 into it all together as there was more stuff to do on it. He did try the roll bar with both the hard and soft tops for it to make sure it fit.
I am really pleased with it. I would post some photos but don't really know how.

PM me if you want some though.


Jeff

[jac04]

We used stainless bolts for everything.
Did you use high-strength stainless? Remember that typical hardware store stainless fasteners aren't all that strong. I would think that you would want a Grade 5 or equivalent fastener for this application.

[1961 109 WAGON]

i was thinking the same thing myself, its okay to use that on trim hardware and light duty parts imo

[ShootingCar]

Thanks for the thoughts on this. I have four posts each with a (4) 3/8" bolt base plate bolted to plates below the wheel wells welded to struts down to the frame. As a structural engineer, I will run some capacity calcs on these and will replace them if needed. The question would be what would be the force of the roll bar shearing off or pulling out in a roll over or accident. Is it say (3) times the weight of the vehicle in a dynamic loading? The roll bar is all constructed of 2" sch. 40 carbon steel pipe. I will get back to you on this. thanks, Jeff

[jac04]

3 times the weight of the vehicle seems a little low, especially if you are trying to determine the force associated with a crash. Using this value, you may look OK. I'd suggest starting at 10x the vehicle weight as a minimum. Depending upon speed and distance to 0 mph, the g-forces generated by a crash can be quite significant. Even a minor crash will generate well over 10 g.