Not a cage but.....

On a recent laning rrip i leant my car into a stony bank and ended up bending the A pillar and breaking the windscreen. Now Ive seen the Windscreen surrounds that you can get for Discoverys and LR 90's - sometimes attached to an internal cage, and this looks like a good idea, so I've been thinking, One long bar along the edge of the roofline with tags welded onto it and bolted through these to the factory roof bar mounts, down the A pillar, front wing nicked out to let the bar go through and bolt onto the door hinges. Bars across top and bottom of windscreen, and two bars across the roof to act as a roofrack and add a little strength.

QUESTION:
Does this seem like a good idea, and would anyone else like one too? Ive asked for prices from a major offroad parts manufacturer who does lots of tube products, the more interest we have the better the price for everyone.

Gary

Yes pal, I would buy one of those tomorrow!!!!

Sounds very intresting, would it work on a normal soft top? as i am looking for some sort of roof rack to!

I presume a version could be made to fit a soft top, you'd have to drill the roll bar between the two roof sections to mount it, and put some vertical supports up from the rear bodywork somehow.

I think you might end up torn between the two extremes of what amounts to a roofrack and a full roll cage.

If it is to protect against minor impacts you will have a choice of either deforming the "cage" or transferring the energy to the bodywork. If you decide to go for the non-deforming version then it could end up bending the bodywork that it attaches to , so you then move it down to the chassis and before you know it it becomes a roll cage.
Having protected the front pillar then the rear quarter will be exposed and suddnely you have a full exo cage.

Doesn't the Landrover version effectively bolt down to the chassis through the Wing tops?

An interesting challenge and not a simple one to work out. Keep any bar across the windscreen at the top and bottom out of the viewline as it will cause hassle with MOT inspectors. My full cage failed at one MOT station but passes at another. The MOT examiners text states something along the lines of "obstructions forward of the windscreen are not a failure" but some testers take the "sticker" rules and apply them to everything.

Really for me the idea is to spread the load of the impact along some bars of some kind, not a roll cage, but would have stopped the damage to the A pillar and the broken windscreen i did the other weekend.
I am tempted by a full cage, but IMO it needs some triangulation inside the car to get the strength to stop it leaning over when i tip the car on its side.

Gary

Yes, any full cage would need triangulation inside the car otherise it just collapses like any open ended carton would if pushed on the side.

Mine has a diagonal inside the car which bolts through the roof onto the external cage. However if I remember correctly it does not bolt through to the chassis below but goes to some spreader plates on the floor (it was fitted when I bought it). If it went to the chassis it would create an interesting problem where the car body becomes rigidly attached to the chassis rather than "floating" on the body rubbers. As it is my body is effectively attached through to the chassis by the roof bolts to the cage! There is still some movement between the body and the cage as the previous owner fitted small rubbers (door stops!) between the cage and the body and I can hear it move sometimes!

Martin