seat belt strengthening hoop

[Bernie]

I had this really brainy idea for working out where to drill the holes for my roll-over bar. The two spare magnets from my speedo kit are strong enough to stick to each other through the fibreglass, thus showing me exactly where to drill from the outside

But when I moved them to the right place, I found that the strengthening hoop end was right in the way on the drivers side - completely off-centre - which is going to give me a somewhat tricky shortening job. Is this just mine, or a general cock-up?

[Frosty]

I nearly had the same problem.

But luckly it was just a couple of mm in my favour.

The only thing I didn't think of was the cover plates and the holes to drill for the screws. Yes you guessed it straight into the plate and boy it's hard.

[m eeley]

Like frosty mine was ok, but only just.

I hope you don't have too much trouble sorting it out.

It will be worth it in the end.

Good luck.

[Kevin W]

Hi,
I just drilled 4 holes for twin roll over bars - and had to go through the metal strap you refer to. Its bloody hard work but can be done. I bought the appropriate hole saw (2" I think), used coarse cutting compound and a very slow drill speed. Getting through the fibreglass was easy. After Id removed the fibreglass 'disc' then cutting through the metal just took time and patience and a steady hand, and (remarkebaly) not too much pressure. (I was using a 12V portable drill and the clutch on it kept squarking if I went too fast).

By the way, my method for roll bar hole cutting was as follows-

take a piece of rigid plastic pipe (as used to connect washing machine outlets etc, costs about 50p /metre) and make a masking tape skin over one end of it, so it looks like a 'drum skin'.

Then wrap layers of tape round the outside of the other end till it just fits/squeezes into the roll bar mounting bracket, with only a small amount of clearence between the top 'drum skin' and the underside of the body tub.

stuff the padded end into the roll bar bracket, and use a mini spirit level to check its vertical alignment.

after much measuring drill a 1mm pilot hole through the bodytub where you think the centre of the roll bar tube should be.

Top skin on the plastic tube should be pierced by the drill bit. Remove plastic tube and inspect hole - If its in the centre, then apply hole saw. If not, try again with another 1mm hole, taking into account the amount of error on the initial pilot hole.

By the way, the rear wings are rather assymentric (at least on my body tub).

cheers,

Kevin W

[Bernie]

Thanks all!