D.L. brand roll cage

[lman]

Any one know anything about D.L. brand roll cages?

 

[Apogee]

Never heard of them. Do you have a link? Website? Anything more than a pair of initials?

 

[lman]

No. I got it from a guy on craigslist and all he knew about them was the brand, as it was welded onto the front brackets.

 

[lman]

But it looks to be very well made. Good thickness for the bars. All the welds were smothed out till you couldn't see them. Then chromed.

 

[Apogee]

But it looks to be very well made. Good thickness for the bars. All the welds were smothed out till you couldn't see them. Then chromed.

Well made or not, smoothing welds and chrome is typically reserved for show rigs/hot rods/trailer queens/etc and actually structurally weakens the design, whether it's a cage your talking about, suspension components, etc, it's all the same. If you're buying a cage for safety rather than looks, I would personally go elsewhere.

 

[rustbucket]

The chroming process can cause hydrogen embrittlement in steel. This can cause the steel to crack, or even shatter, during a rollover. You can bake the cage at about 375-400F right after plating to minimize or eliminate this problem. You HAVE to do this within 24 hours for it to work, though. Grinding the welds smooth is not recommended.

 

[Apogee]

Just about any electro-plating process like chrome, zinc-dichromate, cadmium, etc can cause hydrogen embrittlement, however that is typically only an issue in higher strength steels with yield strengths over 100 ksi (Grade 5 or higher fasteners, heat treated 4140/4340 chromoly components, tool steels, etc). The issue with chrome on mild steel componets with lower yield strengths is that the mild steel is relatively ductile while the chrome is not, so as the substrate elastically flexes and deforms under load, the chrome cracks due to its high hardness. Since the chrome is bonded to the mild steel substrate, the crack propogates into the base material, creating a potential future failure site.

 

[lman]

well I got to test the strength of the cage. It did great. Rolled off the road and landed on the top. Was about 30 feet down. Bronco was pretty well totaled, but I was able to walk away with only a cut on the back of my head, and on my knee.

 

[Scoop]

Holy chit! Glad you're OK. In this case, chrome got you home! ;D

 

[BroncoDreams]

Wow glad you made it out ok. Sorry to hear about the Bronco though.

 

[b56tc]

Man - sorry to hear! so very glad you are basically OK.

Unfortunate chance to educate us - high or low speed rollover? one roll and end up on top, with weight on the cage? Cage bolted to floor or to frame? 4 or 6 point? what kind of cage damage?

Very sorry about your truck, and again glad you are OK, everything else can be fixed or replaced -

 

[Crush]

would like to see a pic of it

 

[lowbush]

would like to see a pic of it

Me too, rollovers present a rare opportunity to evaluate what worked and what did not as far as cage design goes.

 

[Lmfp]

Did you post a pic of the wreck on Facebook?

 

[lman]

Unfortunate chance to educate us - high or low speed rollover? one roll and end up on top, with weight on the cage? Cage bolted to floor or to frame? 4 or 6 point? what kind of cage damage? -

Was probably going around 35 when I went off the road. I flew through the air for a while , so not totally sure how many times it rolled, might have just been once. Had the top on, but that obviously didn't do much. Was resting completely on the cage, and stayed like that for 4 plus hours. It was a 6 point cage that was mounted to the floor. Cage bent back a few inches on passengers side since it took the initial impact. Pushed the floor down on the passengers front, and drivers back.