Roll cages and seat belts

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jonnyt

Active Member
Posts
213
I've been looking at the possibility of having 3 or 4 point harnesses for the 90. I would like them but equally don't want to lose all space in the back for additional passengers or load space.

Doing the ground up rebuild I have a pretty blank canvass. Has anyone considered a cross member off the external roll cage into the cabin and out again. That would be braced forwards and backwards and I would have thought would provide some fair restraint.

I'm fairly careful about the geometry of the belts given the problems if there's an accident and its wrong!

Thanks,

Jon
 
Depends what th ecage is for?

If you want a real cage,

A competition cage then the specs are pretty clear no diviation from them is allowe and you will be banned from taking part in many comps.

If you want a sorta rollcage looking device you can build anything you wish but many cages can do more harm than good to occupants and the idea that anything is better than nothing Doesn't always apply.
 
Cages are designed so to have no doubt they are strong enough:

[nomedia="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eo50xoz8swo"]YouTube - MASSIVE NORC COMPSAFARI LANDROVER CRASH BROADBOTTOM 2005[/nomedia]

Although you may not wish to do speed events all the comps require a similar spec. Winch challenge events have been very laxed up to now this may change in th enext few years MSA I'm sure will bring in more strict criteria than what they call a cage now
 
Hi,

Thanks for the replies.

I was looking at something like this (not sure if this links to the actual one but the something like the last photo on the blue 90 is what I was looking at):

Land Rover 90 Hard / Soft Top Full External Roll Cage

Are you saying that such a cage won't give much protection? I'm not going to do competitions but I want to do some greenlaning and wanted some additional protection.

I was thinking of putting the bar through the B posts.

Thanks,

Jon
 
on that video you can just hear him getting is foot off the gas just before going on the jump.... if he had kept it on, the nose wouldnt have gone down!
 
Hi,

Thanks for the replies.

I was looking at something like this (not sure if this links to the actual one but the something like the last photo on the blue 90 is what I was looking at):

Land Rover 90 Hard / Soft Top Full External Roll Cage

Are you saying that such a cage won't give much protection? I'm not going to do competitions but I want to do some greenlaning and wanted some additional protection.

I was thinking of putting the bar through the B posts.

Thanks,

Jon
some protection is better than no protection
 
Well thats what I thought!! But the earlier threads seem to suggest that that might not be wholly correct.

I know nothing about this so all information received with thanks!
 
well its better than most hopefully as its from W O its all chassis mounted will give some protection its far better than the homemade abortions people make and think are better than nothing. Personally i wouldn't fit one it would hinder more than owt lots of weight up top greenlaning if its that bad shouldn't be driving it anyhow.
 
Bob Cleared,

There is loads of comps coming up if your interested I'll add them to the Herts laners calander as soon as they are confirmed Jai
 
I would never attach belts to any cage that isn't 100% solid and made for the job. After all, if the cage is torn from the car, you're going with it and that's if you're lucky and it goes forwards. If it goes backwards the best outcome is it cuts your arms off and cuts you clean in half.
So before you go knocking up your own cage, think about the worst... then go and buy the best competition spec cage that is designed to take harnesses.
 
There was alot of todoo about seat belt mounts and spare wheel mounts on competition cages a while back. what their argument was that if you hit a tree or immovable object and the spare wheel/highlift/seat belt was attached to the rear stay it was possible for the weight of your body pulling in the stay, the weight of the spare wheel and highlift actually bending one of the main stays. I think the outcome was that only seat belts and nothing else should be attached and these should be as per MSA spec with 6mm steel plates formed around the rear stay.

Whitbread off road cage you liked is ok but IMO a waste of money as its not a propper cage. you can spot a bull**it cage a mile off and it just looks tarty but everyone that knows owt just thinks its another bit of pointless bling!
 
I have the same roll cage on my 90, you can see it on the little photo. If you live near me (north Wiltshire) your welcome to come and have a look. It goes straight through to the chassis. My vehicle has been raced and is also fitted with 4 point belts as well as the normal seat belts.

My harness is fitted to a 40mm (6mm wall) box section framework that is bolted down behind the front seats. Its strong and doesn't loose any space in the rear. i would say though that if your not racing it don't bother with them as they are quite restricting, I find it hard to reach the end of the hand brake when strapped in tight. If your racing then its a must.

pop over if your near
 
Hi,

Thanks for the offer of a look - if I'm up that way in the near future I'll pop in. QUite a long way though for me if I'm not in the area! Any chance of a picture of the seatbelt mounts?

Thanks,

Jon
 
The MSA regs for cages keep changing almost every year and thats why grass root sports dont like MSA that much as it means a lot of money and wastage.

As for the Roll cage doing more harm he is right, The idea of a ROLL cage is to prevent the roof/ sides comming in and killing you HOWEVER fitting a cage can kill you with out touching you, due to the vehicle being more ridged then if you hit some thing the vehicle stops dead, you are still moving, your harness stops you from moving, now your internals are still moving, thats when the heart gets ripped from the back and your dead, or you get other internal injurys.

As for the belts il try and find some info for them
 
For our sport Offroad slow speed events relativly stopping dead is not as much of an issue. The human body can take upto 13G not for a long period. Even the comp safari have a maximum speed/average speed if the course is designed within reglations. Many seem not to be there was a time when some comp safaris were more like WRC not very rough and lots of fast sections where competitors were reaching 100MPH+ which I believe is well above the max & average course speed set out. the minimum Steam barrell to BS 1387 Spec this combined to a recognised design does not give Gret for CCV motors bouncing off trees and Comp Safari racing. You an use CDS and it gives more than Steam barrell but the cage is often wrecked after a roll.

Material Specs:

The minimum material specification for all tubing will be nominal 38mm / 1½" bore steel "blue band" tubing to BS 1387. (This will actually be nearer 42mm / 15/8") This has a minimum wall thickness of 3.2mm / 1/8" and a minimum outside diameter of 48.3mm / 17/8". See table below for practical imperial and metric stock sizes. Tensile strength will be between 320 - 416 N/mm2. Yield strength will be at least 195N/mm2. Tubing which exceeds this specification is recommended where the outside diameter at least matches the above type and a minimum nominal wall thickness of 2.5mm where the quality and origin can be traced.”

People have died and others have been injured Roll cages and the mention of, should not be taken lightly. A real cage is worth more than the vehicle. just getting some scaffold tube and bolting it to your rock sliders is not a cage. Its a sure sign of a Pretend comp motor. Most scaffold tube actually exceeds BS 1387 however getting it the correct design, welded correctly and signed off is another matter.

If you have no rear stays and has not been tested and approved by the powers that be its not a real cage Yes you will lose space in the rear but its a roll cage.

Here are the strictest specs for our sport IF you follow these and get the cage tagged you can compete in almost any offroad comp in the UK.

Title

You can not deviate from the designs,
you can not miss out sections,
It must conform exactly.

Many winch comps are quite free on cage design often not asking to see the tag I'm certain this will change very soon.

Info to help If you need anything else shout. As you can see I can't Stand pretend rollcages pretend competition motors.
 
Added to the above if you hit a tree at 70Mph you will be hurting and will stop dead in your tracks. There has been talk of HANS devices being fitted to COmp safari guys since last year but this is still very much happening/being talked over well the last thing I heared anyway.
 
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