Roll over protection
10 JunBack on the car today. Although not always straight forward, it’s far more enjoyable than the visa paper trail.
Once upon a time in 1988, The Consumers Union in the United States stated in a report that the Suzuki SJ ‘easily rolls over in turns’. This was based on a test which simulated a sudden swerve. Suzuki was upset with the report, and took legal action. The ensuing legal battle was eventually settled out of court after 8 years and the Consumers Union agreed to state that it ‘never intended to imply that the Samurai easily rolls over in routine driving conditions’ (extracted from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suzuki_Samurai).
Even so, it’s narrow, it’s tall, and it has a high centre of gravity. In the case of our model, it has a fibreglass roof, and a fold down windscreen. In the event of a roll over there isn’t much metal protecting our beautiful heads.
This is why when I saw a factory Suzuki roll over protection bar on Ebay, I snapped it up. It’s the next item requiring attention on the Mongolmania beast.
It should be easy, buy it and bolt it in. Of course it quickly went rather pear shaped. The roll bar was from a short wheel base model, and you can see in the picture (of a short wheel base installation) how it was made to bolt to the rear wheel arch. Because our car is a long wheel base, the rear wheel arches are a long way further rearward. Mounting the roll bar there would mean it wasn’t over the top of the passengers, and thus wouldn’t be protecting our heads.
Thus today I began modifying it so that it could be mounted in the correct position, but to the floor instead of the rear wheel arch. This is tricky as it’s wider than the floor of the car. Ideally I’d fabricate some new parts and then weld them in the car, but the doors on the room with the welder are too narrow for the car, and the welder can’t be moved.
Never mind though, by the end of today though I had the new pieces all cut from square tube and ready to be tacked together with the welder. Next step will be a dummy fit in the car, before welding it fully.
