Series internal roll bar

getting To the stage of thinking about internals on my series 3 Swb rebuild
As I’m going to carry two small kids in it, was thinking safety
As the rebuild has be thus far as standard, don’t want to ruin originality
But thinking of some sort of internal cage as it will be soft top
Also, forward facing rear seats? Are these hard to install. They seem expensive. Any thoughts
Cheers

Internal cages can be quite dangerous unless in a full race seat and harness and wearing a crash helmet. Impacting one, which is easily done without the former. Is usually worse than not having one.

Front facing seats I suspect potential will not be type approved. So could cause some liability and insurance issues should something happen.

How much, how often, what sort of distance and what types of roads do you think you’ll be using the vehicle on?

The military used to fit an extra strong hoop at the bulkhead position on their soft top landy's. They just fitted on the tub like a standard hoop and gave extra protection in a roll over.
When I started 4x4 trialing many moons ago the rule was [ since changed ] open top trucks could compeat as long as the screen was up and the hoops were still fitted, it was supprising how well they held up in a slow roll.

I've looked inot this and came to the conclusion that the army style stong hoop on the bulkhead is a good solution. It roll over protection not a roll cage. Roll cages really need to go through the tub onto the chassis and its a lot more modification and (as above) only make sense with a full harness otherwise the roll cage injures you not the bodywork. I also drive with 1 child and have made a few mods: 1 drive sensibley and defensively. 2 cover sharp edges, I have roll cage protection on the door pillars, 3 sort out the seatbelt mountings and fit backing (pull though) plates. 4 Fit a dog screen when there is load in the back, including backs and camping junk - (I was nearly decapited by a flat pack wardrobe - lesson learned!) 5 fit more lights, especially high on the rear, it seems series are invisible on motorways.6 Make the seat fixings work properly - the straps on the seat back etc, you don't want everything flying about.

On the lights issue, I have small very bright LEDs, about 3/4" dia that can be seem at about twice the distance of the std rear lights. Easy to make some brackets up. I was at a military rally recently and a guy in a Jeeep came up to me and asked about them, it was bad weather and he said my vehicle was a lot more visible than the others, they had just come back from a trip to Dunkirk and a WW2 Jeep had been rear-ended while drving at 50 mph by a driver who "didn't seem them", it was a bad accident.

rob1miles said:

I have small very bright LEDs, about 3/4" dia that can be seem at about twice the distance of the std rear lights.

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That’s a scary story have you any more detail on what you used for the led lights

I used these:
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/1-Pair-1...727860&hash=item2aaf067bcd:g:9WkAAOSw7yZbSeN3
They mount through a 3/8" hole. In my case I put holes in the roof but you could make up some small brackets, They are quite directional so they need to face to the rear. The Jeep guy was going to make up some mounts on crocodile clips to fit on the rear lip of the body.so they could be easy to put on for drving and take off for shows.

Cheers Rob

Thanks all . Great info

I’m not going for off-roading safety, so not going with comp roll bars etc just school run, holidays etc.
never knew about inside roll bars being more of a danger, but that makes sense thinking about iT
Like the idea of adding more lights, Land Rover lights are pretty rubbish to be fair, so can see why you may not see them. should be relatively easy to do without hurting originality .


Rob.. what are the pillar roll protection and army roll hoop, have you any details photos please?

wwwfc666 said:

Rob.. what are the pillar roll protection and army roll hoop, have you any details photos please?

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Military roll bar can be seen in this pic (defender not series):



As you can see it just bolts to the tub and is much heavier duty hoop. They are not cheap or common though so will be a challenge to find one.

I have this stuff wrapped round my door pillars and held on with cable ties:
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Longacre...b6aa:m:m0tb1HV3tBhRWOu8FKY-vBw&frcectupt=true
I don't have the mil hoop as at the moment my set up has the load screen in the way, I'll get some photos. I was thinking of getting a hoop made that combined the hoop and load screen.