this is just a picture of what i made last night.... i figured i'd atleast do something to keep me busy while doing my engine rebuild....ill post more pics as progress comes along. My bar is 1.25 inches. i dont quite remember the wall thickness but its damn thick enough that it didnt crumple like a soda can when i used it on this cheap hydraulic pipe bender. I first tried exhaust tubing to just get a feel for the bender. but it got squashed. In this picture i just sized up everything to make sure the width of the hoop contours the hardtop just right.

 

So what kind of piping did you use? Mild steel? Stainless? What thickness? If you could shed more details that would be great.

Im going to build my own as well, and this might really help me and others out

 

i used ridgid steel piping. ill take a picture of the piping wall thickness with a ruler ontop of it for comparason . give me about 10 mins

 

I finished up my bar a few weeks ago. Are you going to weld it in or bolt it?

I planned on bolting mine in but I'm a lazy *** so I just welded it in lol.

 

^ definatly welding it in. right behind the seats, i still need to figure out where to weld plates at for the bars that go straight back.. Do they go somewhere by the rear shock tower?.. 18psi . i lied, and so did the sticker. It says 1.25 tubing but its definatly much bigger than that on the od or even the id. the pipe's wall thickness is 3/16. I made the main hoop out of 2 peices of piping. So, in the picture above, there is a gap. i filled in that gap by patching it up with piping welding it solid and grinding the welds down, then sleeving it. (pictures below) I definatly did not want this portion of the hoop to be a weak point so i put a preety long peice of rod inside half of the hoop, welded it to the pipe, then slid the other half of the hoop onto the rod, welded it onto it. Then the patch, then grinding, then sleeve.

 

sorry for the **** quality pics guys, but this is all that my phone can provide :(

 

FYI, that won't pass any type of real tech inspection. Main hoops ALWAYS have to be a single bar.

 

^ no worries. I dont plan on auto xing this car. Just mainly personal safety. Im sure the rod inside of the hoop, welding the seam shut, then sleeving the seam is much stronger than one solid piece. But, i could be wrong. i dont understand why it wouldn't be stronger

 

id be careful with that... give it a try before installing it in a car. just in case, you know?

 

How are you planning to build it within regs for head to bar spacing? It's gotta be a close call between not being able to fit it under the roof and keeping it 2"(IIRC?) away from your helmet. Can't really hammer it if it doesn't fit right.

 

Yeah I'd roll the car over atleast once before trying it with you inside it.

 

for now im only doing the back portion. I dont think i will be doing a full cage as that may prove to be more dangerous for a street application. if this is what you meant by the head to bar?. but i have the bar sitting behind the seat as possible and as high up to the roof as possible. Im using the design of miatacage.com, where they use plates onto the frame to weld the main hoop in. then two down pipes to the rear, then a diagonal section in the hoop... ehh instead of trying to describe how it will look . check out miatacage.com

 

the walls of the pipe are nearly twice as thick as miatacage.com. it had to be. If i were to use .095 (walls thickness) this bender would just have flattend the tubing. they are able to get away with using thinner walls cause they probally have godly mandrel benders. Dom - drawn over mandrel i believe is what that is called. Mandrel = no bottle necks to ribs, no crushed tubing. .1875 walled tubing+ cheap hydraulic bender = same thing.

 

oh haha in the first picture. you can actually see what that bender did with exhaust piping look to the right of the engine stand. that tubing just crumbled under pressure

 

 

I wouldn't let that touch my car. And my car is ugly as crap.

 

^ its ok. Im sure no one would touch your car. Not here for your guys criticism. just here to give some outlines on people who want to make their own bar. Its up to them if they do it in one peice or 1000 pieces

 

im gonna say it now: youre an idiot. dont put that crap in your car.

 

why not just make it out of PVC since its only for show? Did Helen Keller weld that?

 

A false sense of safety is better than nothing? Is your next project going to be a Papier-mâché helmet?

Good luck with that.