horrible crash right outside my work this morning...

[the-glove]

Just a note on this, floor bars are as strong if not stronger than frame tie in's. As well if you are running a glass body, you should consider floor bars for at least the B pillar. As well, if you are going to be doing any type of freeway driving, you should consider going with DOM or a high carbon stainless for your cage. Both of which will respond better in a high speed impact than HREW.Most importantly make sure it is US or Canadian manufactured steel.





Yep, a bare roll bar can kill you just as easy as no roll bar, it's like getting hit in the head with a bat.

What do you guys mean when you're talking about floor bars? Do you mean a steel bar underneath the body, bolted to the rollcage foot plates, that sandwiches the body in between? I have a 10 month old daughter now and have been wanting to tie the family cage to the frame or something for a while. Sad sad story.

 

[asinor]

What do you guys mean when you're talking about floor bars? Do you mean a steel bar underneath the body, bolted to the rollcage foot plates, that sandwiches the body in between? I have a 10 month old daughter now and have been wanting to tie the family cage to the frame or something for a while. Sad sad story.

Bars on top of the floor between the pillar hoops A to A, A to B, B to B, B to C and C to C. The best sould be a full hoop with a diagonal brace from one corner to the other to keep the hoop from parralelogramming and with seat mounts welded to the floor bars. Most street cages don't have the diagonal though because it limits access to the rear seating. Seats mounted to the floor bars keeps the passengers inside the cage even if it seperates from the body. Its always a trade off between fully safe, fully usable, level of risk, and money available. Older vehicles and EB's in particular lack any sort of roll over protection from the factory. I would not own or drive an EB without some type of roll bar. New cars, even composite bodied coupes have a B pillar roll bar equivalent designed into them. Most (by no means all) performance convertibles have pop-up or static hoops behind the drivers now too.

The more bracing, mounting, and padding the safer.

Here is an exmple with A to B floor bars and seat mounts and a diagonal between the B and C:
http://broncograveyard.com/bronco/i-17778-premium-6-point-with-family-roll-bar-cage.html
You can also add seat mounts for the rear seat.

Compare to the Baja single hoop similar to this.
http://extremecustomparts.com/i-593650-factory-style-early-bronco-roll-bar-kit.html

BaileBilt makes some nice cages.
http://broncobumpersandcages.com/
And one for sale in the classifieds:
http://classicbroncos.com/forums/showthread.php?t=205689

This accident wasn't the cages fault, don't even know how it played inthe safety of those involved. It is sad and I wish all the families the best.

 

[ploidy]

i think rollbars and family cages are great investments but i personally feel it won't do much in a high speed or high impact rollover. these broncos were built when safety wasn't much of a concern...(just look at a stock bronco with lap seat belts and a steering wheel in your chest)...and any aftermarket "safety" modifications we do are never tested along with body and suspension lifts...everything we do will have an affect in an accident...(god forbid)....but, they are fun and make great hobbies and it's something i wouldn't give up for the world.
i too want to express my condolences and will put all involved in my prayers.

 

[asinor]

i think rollbars and family cages are great investments but i personally feel it won't do much in a high speed or high impact rollover. these broncos were built when safety wasn't much of a concern...(just look at a stock bronco with lap seat belts and a steering wheel in your chest)...and any aftermarket "safety" modifications we do are never tested along with body and suspension lifts...everything we do will have an affect in an accident...(god forbid)....but, they are fun and make great hobbies and it's something i wouldn't give up for the world.
i too want to express my condolences and will put all involved in my prayers.

I think a good family cage is one of the best investments you will make.

And as for not taking a high speed hit, it doesn't get much harder than this:
http://www.bcbroncos.com/InterriorRollCage.html

 

[ploidy]

I think a good family cage is one of the best investments you will make.

And as for not taking a high speed hit, it doesn't get much harder than this:
http://www.bcbroncos.com/InterriorRollCage.html

that's what it's designed to do...a roll....not sure how good it will be in a head on situation

 

[asinor]

It won't do anything in a head on unless it flips too, the only thing that will help there are belts, crumple zones and airbags.

A shoulder belt and airbag saved my life.

 

[lowbush]

What do you guys mean when you're talking about floor bars? Do you mean a steel bar underneath the body, bolted to the rollcage foot plates, that sandwiches the body in between? I have a 10 month old daughter now and have been wanting to tie the family cage to the frame or something for a while. Sad sad story.

Look at the B-pillar the two bars that run along the floor are floor bars. This cage is built by Gordon from Bailie Bilt, in my opinion it is one of the best Bronco cage designs.

I think a good family cage is one of the best investments you will make.

And as for not taking a high speed hit, it doesn't get much harder than this:
http://www.bcbroncos.com/InterriorRollCage.html

I agree a good family cage will hold for most highway speed rollovers. It's not going to look good, and it is going to deform, but it will absorb the impact, and keep enough structure to keep the passengers safe.

that's what it's designed to do...a roll....not sure how good it will be in a head on situation

Usually not much for head on, but if you have a dash bar and an under dash bar on the A-pillar it can keep the engine from coming into the cage area. Best thing for head on in these vehicles are 4+ point harness, properly tied into the cage.

 

[jetdoc]

any recomendations for those of us with half cabs? (other than ditching the cab and going full top) Im guessing options are very limited

 

[asinor]

any recomendations for those of us with half cabs? (other than ditching the cab and going full top) Im guessing options are very limited

Gordon also makes a very nice and beefy half-cabcage.
http://broncobumpersandcages.com/st...lassic+Bronco&SubCategory=Cages&Search=&Page=

 

[half cab]

Somebody on here has a fuli in cab roll bar for a halfcab...I've sen it,but can't remember who??


oops was reading above and didn't see your post asinor.

 

[blubuckaroo]

I can see the attraction now for a full cage. The problem is you need to consider the weight of the thing and what it'll do to your handling as well as the vehicle's performance. The problems multiply if you put a steel top over your full cage. I can remember how my handling and performance were affected when I just added a single bar. Sure there is room for safety improvements but going overboard with this is just asking for other issues.

 

[ObscureMachine]

I really like what you guys are saying about the safety of our broncos.
I know the limitations of my broncos in their present condition and I drive them accordingly, but there a lot of guys out there that have no mechanical knowledge and just want to drive a cool bronco ( who can blame them). Those are the guys that we need to look out for and help them. We can only hope they take the advice %)

There are also countless owners who have bought a "restored" bronco from a "professional builder" and they assume all the mechanicals are new and installed properly. They think because it's been "restored" that it's safe. Never assume. Know your bronco.

 

[bknbronco]

WOW! My condolances to all parties involved!

Looks like the bronco went right over the car and flipped after hitting the front axle??

I guess i should push off on the purchase of a soft top and rear bench until i build a cage for my glass bodied bronco! I like the floor bar idea. I have seen frame tie ins that look like they would never work. Let me find the pics........

I had these two pics saved for reference, but the other day i was looking at the first pic and started wondering how in the world that would do any good????? With the pivot point on the frame wouldnt the roll bar just push down and pivot?? Looks completly worthless??

The second pic looks better with the piviot point up top, but still kinda shady?? Without alot of angle the forces applied to it would crumple that mount also.

Im not engineer but....seems like the floor bars win hands down. Easyer to built and looks safer. So with floor bars you dont need frame tieins, or you incorporate the stock body mount bolts onto the frame design??

Sure a better cage would protect the bronco driver and passangers, but what would protect the other cars involved?? Are nylocks on track bars ok? Pitman arm bolts are just a lockwasher, is that ok? We all say piss on bumper height laws, but might that have saved a life in this case?

 

[Mountain Ram]

In a bad enough wreck, both those bolts would likely shear and both tubes would bend prior to that. However, they would take a lot of abuse before giving away. Much like crumple zones in cars today... They will allow the car to get totaled, but you have a better chance of living.

A conbination of frame tie ins and floor bars would be ideal. Neither will do any good if the seats and belts aren't both tied into the cage...

Look at the EB in the latest issue of Crawl magazine. Seats bolted to the floor with a nice custom cage- belts tied to the cage. Great in a slow roll, but not as good in a high speed roll. Just saying.

Todd

 

[Revelation]

One of the things we did when building mine was we spent a few days talking and getting ideas to make it safer for the road. Some of the changes did take some off road capability away but the overall project works well. some of the things we did for safety.

Bronco has a 3 1/2" susp. lift and a 1" BL, we Lowered the motor/trans/t-case 3" and moved it back 3", COG is better than stock, lost a little articulation and ground clearance at the t-case but she corners without any lean, I can still use a stock rear driveshaft, the front had to be extended but ended up with better angles, have not had any issues with the ground clearance, even getting in some areas where it could have caused issues.

Going with the NP435 we knew we were going to have to compromise the body bracket at the front floors. we cut the hole as small as possible (Lowering the motor/trans helped greatly) and we used a double plate of 1/8" where the hole in the floor/body brace was, to add the rigidity back into that area. Add in the 16ga stainless floors and firewall and the rigidity of the body exceeds that of a stock body.

We extended the wheel base 1 1/2" in the front, and 1" in the rear for added stability.

We did extend the radius arms 12", left them straight, I feel that helped with stability.

4 wheel disc brakes

Roll cage, still a work in progress. as are better seat belts.

 

[lowbush]

I had these two pics saved for reference, but the other day i was looking at the first pic and started wondering how in the world that would do any good????? With the pivot point on the frame wouldnt the roll bar just push down and pivot?? Looks completly worthless??

The second pic looks better with the piviot point up top, but still kinda shady?? Without alot of angle the forces applied to it would crumple that mount also.

Im not engineer but....seems like the floor bars win hands down. Easyer to built and looks safer. So with floor bars you dont need frame tieins, or you incorporate the stock body mount bolts onto the frame design??

The pivots in the images are so the cage can compress some before it actually becomes rigid, think of it as using the sheet metal in the floor as a spring to cushion the impact, the sheet metal takes the initial impact, gives the bars fall 6 inches or so and then the cage tightens up and becomes rigid. They are actually a good design, if they are the right length and you are not a really tall person. Also they are useless in a glass tub.

With the floor bars you don't need a frame tie in, so long as you at least have bars on the B and C pillars and preferably bars running forward from the B to the A legs. What bars do is distribute the load across the frame rails, so when they take an impact it is not a whole bunch of pressure on a few frame attach points.

 

[Broncitis]

I do not think the design in the pics in post #74 with the bushings were a result of an intentional engineering decision for a "crumple zone" effect.

From those I have seen build them this way, they are often done to allow for some flex in the chassis and for easier alignment than 100% ridgid mounts in case you remove and re install.

IMO, they are a poor design since the pivot eliminated one of the two places that add stiffness. Not to mention that when they(or similar tie-ins fixed at each end) fail, the cage comes down around/into you.

Stock 40 year old tubs offer little resistance to punch through in serious roll overs. I nearly had my head taken off when a body mounted 4 point punched through on my Bronco when I rolled down Slick Rock at Tellico about 10-11 years ago. If I had my shoulder belts on I would likely be dead. I felt the roll coming and laid across the seats. When it came to rest, the roll bar was below the headrest of the seat that sprung back up. Slow replay of videos of the roll showed that everything was flat to the bed rails at one point during the roll.

Since then, I built a full cage and tied in the seats to the cage and have bars running across the floor at the B pillar behind the seats and also have my rear legs tied into a piece of 2x2 x 1/4" wall tube that runs across under the floor in the channel of the tub above the rear body mounts.

Bars like I have on the B-pillar crossing the frame will allow only a couple inches of compression until contact with the frame is made. The rear most will allow virtually none since the body mounts go though it.

Also, if your seat is bolted to and you are belted to the tub and the cage is only body mounted with floor bars for punch though protection, you can still have a serious issue of the cage and body separating where you can be crushed by it in a lateral shift.

If you have your seats to the cage but the belts to the body with no tie in, you can be ripped between them as well. This is why I went with seats and belts to a cage with floor bars. The reasoning was that if the SHTF again in a bad way I want to be belted into my seat with the cage as on unit so it all hopefully moves together.

 

[Greg_B]

I can see the attraction now for a full cage. The problem is you need to consider the weight of the thing and what it'll do to your handling as well as the vehicle's performance. The problems multiply if you put a steel top over your full cage. I can remember how my handling and performance were affected when I just added a single bar. Sure there is room for safety improvements but going overboard with this is just asking for other issues.

Lots of truth in that statement. I built a full cage for mine and it made a huge difference in everything... how it handles, how it stops and how it goes... that extra weight changes everything. If I were doing it again I would make mine a little different and take out some metal. Probably go with 1.75 instead of 2" and on the seat mount bars go with 1.25 instead of 1.5.

I would also create a halo bar similar to Gordons and BC Broncos. Mainly for the way the cage interferes with top.

Greg

 

[lowbush]

I do not think the design in the pics in post #74 with the bushings were a result of an intentional engineering decision for a "crumple zone" effect.

From those I have seen build them this way, they are often done to allow for some flex in the chassis and for easier alignment than 100% ridgid mounts in case you remove and re install.

I am only going off what other people that use them, have told me they are for, I am by no means an expert on them, but I talked to a few guys over the years, after doing a WTF are those and they explained that they act like the shocks mounts in a bumper by using the metal to absorb the first part of the impact. I have never tested the theory, nor am I going to (but I have seen a cage roll that has had them) . For me personally, I use floor bars, and would not use anything else, to me they are the most proven. I too tie everything that attaches the person to the vehicle to the cage, seat and harnesses, both front and rear.

 

[allenfahey]

This is a thread of what Broncitis was referring to with his cage punching thru the floor. Post #6 is the picture but the link to the video is dead.