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Thu Apr 30, 2009 9:39 pm

runslikeapenguin wrote: HILLAHOLIC wrote: riNR wrote: Holy snikes! You've got me worried now with my Berrien Sandfox 4 frame. Mine looks like it woud be pretty vulnerable too.

Oh ya, And the fat guy with his shirt off. Tell him to cover up, that's freakin gross. I have to go and throw up now.

Watch it now. The guy with his shirt off is my friend Dave (DVS1). He took his shirt off to try to stop Bills head from bleeding.

was his head bleeding before the crash? :?

I guess I need to add some details to my pictures. It seem to be confusing some people

This picture is a completely different buggy. This was just a picture of Bill bleeding and passing out getting ready to go to the helicopter in a different buggy. All the pictures of the smashed cage is what it looked like when we got to the bottom of the hill and found Bill knocked out. The one picture the cage is cut just to get it off the steering wheel so we could drive it back to camp.

Fri May 01, 2009 6:32 am

riNR wrote: Holy snikes! You've got me worried now with my Berrien Sandfox 4 frame. Mine looks like it woud be pretty vulnerable too.

Oh ya, And the fat guy with his shirt off. Tell him to cover up, that's freakin gross. I have to go and throw up now.
i'm sure your being sarcastic but that guy helped save my ass. dont judge a book by its cover. i do beleve your sandfox is basicly the same frame as mine (4105) just taller on the sides. dont know what kind of riding you do but i would seriously look at renforcing the lid.
i decided to use 11/2 .120 dom after reading posts here at the samba and at woodsbuggy.com i considered 15/8 but i dont have the dies for my bender

Fri May 01, 2009 8:02 am

plumberbill wrote: riNR wrote: Holy snikes! You've got me worried now with my Berrien Sandfox 4 frame. Mine looks like it woud be pretty vulnerable too.

Oh ya, And the fat guy with his shirt off. Tell him to cover up, that's freakin gross. I have to go and throw up now.
i'm sure your being sarcastic but that guy helped save my ass. dont judge a book by its cover. i do beleve your sandfox is basicly the same frame as mine (4105) just taller on the sides. dont know what kind of riding you do but i would seriously look at renforcing the lid.
i decided to use 11/2 .120 dom after reading posts here at the samba and at woodsbuggy.com i considered 15/8 but i dont have the dies for my bender

Good move..... And forget hoop design in front an go with "A-Pillar" design with big "X" brace on top (across full passenger area)

Fri May 01, 2009 10:35 am

HILLAHOLIC wrote: runslikeapenguin wrote: HILLAHOLIC wrote: riNR wrote: Holy snikes! You've got me worried now with my Berrien Sandfox 4 frame. Mine looks like it woud be pretty vulnerable too.

Oh ya, And the fat guy with his shirt off. Tell him to cover up, that's freakin gross. I have to go and throw up now.

Watch it now. The guy with his shirt off is my friend Dave (DVS1). He took his shirt off to try to stop Bills head from bleeding.

was his head bleeding before the crash? :?

I guess I need to add some details to my pictures. It seem to be confusing some people

This picture is a completely different buggy. This was just a picture of Bill bleeding and passing out getting ready to go to the helicopter in a different buggy. All the pictures of the smashed cage is what it looked like when we got to the bottom of the hill and found Bill knocked out. The one picture the cage is cut just to get it off the steering wheel so we could drive it back to camp.

No the pictures explained themselves....just look at their tree bars on the side..completely different, let alone the guy in the passenger seat bleeding with a shirt wadded up on his head. I guess only a few didnt put the pieces together.

Fri May 01, 2009 1:04 pm

plumberbill wrote: i'm sure your being sarcastic but that guy helped save my ass. dont judge a book by its cover. i do beleve your sandfox is basicly the same frame as mine (4105) just taller on the sides. dont know what kind of riding you do but i would seriously look at renforcing the lid.
i decided to use 11/2 .120 dom after reading posts here at the samba and at woodsbuggy.com i considered 15/8 but i dont have the dies for my bender

Good to hear you're still with us and rethinking the roll structure of that buggy. You can never have too much roll protection as long as its far enough from your soft melon... :D

BTW, WEAR A HELMET! :D

Fri May 01, 2009 9:15 pm

I'm glad your friend was ok. He was very lucky. You might want to steal some ideas from Nascar and Score unlimited rails.

Sun May 03, 2009 5:47 pm

a few pics of the rebuild

looks lopsided in this pic but its actually straight

Sun May 03, 2009 7:04 pm

Looks good might want to try and add some b pillars too.I think about rollovers myself since i take my family in my car.I built a new car from a new chasis i bought i added the b pillars(between front and rear seats on outside of frame)

Added some tubing behind the front seat that goes across the chasis.But being one who does alot of sand duning and seeing results from roll overs has me thinking of adding X bracing in the future.behind front seats and rear seats.

Sun May 03, 2009 7:27 pm

i'm far from done. this was just one afternoon of working on it. i had to consider alot of different points of view. x-bracing will be added in the next couple days. everyone's imput is much appreciated. if you have a suggestion please post it.

Sun May 03, 2009 8:05 pm

One thing i see on alot of sand cars out here is X bracing on the roof section too.Looks like you are off to a good start and really looking to make it strong.IMO a lil more weight for more strength is a good trade off.

Mon May 04, 2009 1:11 am

plumberbill wrote: i'm far from done. this was just one afternoon of working on it. i had to consider alot of different points of view. x-bracing will be added in the next couple days. everyone's imput is much appreciated. if you have a suggestion please post it.

Glad you came out OK! Very scary looking. There have been some inappropriate comments on here, but most all of us are glad you survived.

As a Tech inspector at races including offroad and on road, and a professional fabricator of many types of race car, I can see some issues in your car's original design which should be addressed. I approve of the basic design change. Although the lateral hoops design is quite strong. The basic problems were the long span of the roof for the 2+2 cockpit, lack of diagonal ('X') bracing, and the lack of a B pillar in the middle of that span. The fact of .095 being too thin for that long of a span results from the long span, although it's fine with shorter spans. .120 is a wise move for the new cage.

My old race car had a similar cage design to your original, but with short spans. It survived a flat out in high gear endo during a race. The cage was not compressed or bent. Although the whole frame had a substantial twist.

The B pillars, because off the chassis design, will be scary close to heads of front seat occupants. The truss diagonals on the lower part of the frame may need to be moved to allow the B pillar to be farther back for head clearance. Racers are required to have gussets in the top corners of the cage for weld area increase, not for making the corners rigid. That would only make the tubes break at the end of the gussets.

I VERY much approve of wearing helmets when playing. I've seen way more people hurt and killed when playing than when racing. This is me and my son in my buddy's 4 seater:

Mon May 04, 2009 8:02 am

Looks like a great start on getting it squared away. I was waiting on Dusty to chime in here, his racing and tech inspect expierence is pretty invaluable. Many of us have constructed chassis but (luckily) never had the opportunity to test out our work.

From the pics it's obvious you run your rail hard (and you've got the HP for it), since you're welding on the chassis, now would be a good time to add some addl bracing from the windshield pillars down toward the beam. IMO, some X bracing incorporated above your legs in the hood area would be prudent also. The berrin chassis I was running had some flex (twist) in that area under hard running and the frame cracked right at the first verticle brace behind the beam. I suspect the new chassis would have done the same thing eventually. Your rail's gonna loose some of it's ability to wheelie (probably not a bad thing from your recent expierence). I bought a chassis with the same front end design and added some addl bracing to counter that.

This was the design of the knockdown I picked up.

This was what I came up with, I'm no expert in chassis design but I can say there's little flex.

Mon May 04, 2009 9:27 am

Looks like a great start!

Mon May 04, 2009 5:49 pm

thanks everyone for all the comments so far. i got the x-bracing in the roof today.

rlwp recommended an a pillar leg and to keep it in plane with the main hoop but because of seat width and the way the frame gets wider this cant be done without being out of plane. how critical is that also getting in and out will be hard to do unless i enter and exit through the windshield area, not sure how safe that will be. is there another way to address this. dont want to end on my lid and have the same thing happen. i also want to put an x-brace behind the front seats, how close is "to close to the occupants head" sitting in the car i have 31/2" from the top of my head to the bottom of the roof tubing.

Mon May 04, 2009 6:19 pm

thats a good point about the A pillar brace. i wasn't thinking about the rails curve.

i would be inclined to think that it would be ok to push it out a little bit. from the pictures it looks like where it would come down is close enough.

as for the rear seat, you want to keep the X bracing at least 3"-4" away from the occupants heads, and then run some padding just in case.

the work looks good though, i think your goign to end up with quite the uniqe rail after this.

Tue May 05, 2009 8:51 am

You could run the rear x-brace on the same plane as the two bars that go to the rear of the engine cage. Won't be quite as strong as farther up, but it will be out of the occupant's heads more. With cages, it sometimes comes to a compromise between strength and occupant room.

For anything that can come even close to contacting someone's head, use this:

http://store.summitracing.com/partdetail.asp?autof...toview=sku

And the other padding is fine for places that only legs and arms can touch. I like the SFI stuff more anyway, it's purtier... :D

I think a bent B-pillar bar, while not as strong as straight, would work better than a second A-pillar bar, especially if that bar is going to be bent as well. It looks like a second A-pillar bar might make exits difficult. Just keep it to a single bend and keep the bend as high and as small as possible. Only bummer is you'd need to back that B pillar up on the other side of the forward legs, which would make a star brace or something. Oh well, more tubes isn't bad...

Tue May 05, 2009 6:22 pm

Belts can and will stretch up to 1/3 of their working length. That means from the mount to the buckle, as adjusted, not including lose ends or metal buckles.

3-1/2 - 4" is pretty good. A helmet will reduce that and really should be considered in the equation, as it SHOULD be worn. Definitely if you're doing steep hillclimbs like that or going quick over rough ground.

I was actually referring to clearance to vertical bars before. The B pillar in particular. It's amazing what kind of gyrations your head can do in a crash.

It looks like you're doing fine fab work.

I 2nd Rockwood's comments re padding.

The 2nd A pillar does not need to be bent at all. It could be straight from the top of the A pillar at the front roof bar and straight down and back to the top rail at the point where the lower diagonals tie in to the top rail.

As an alternate to the 2nd A pillar which will indeed compromise access, the B pillar will serve much the same strength purpose. The B pillars should be connected across the top (turning the top 'X' into an asterisk). An 'X' brace behind the front seats would be outstanding and is required for offroad race cars. However, it is not much of a strength addition without the B pillar to make an 'X' in a box. Again, as I stated before, this may require relocating the lower diagonal braces.

Tue May 05, 2009 6:50 pm

got the x-bracing in behind the front seats today

Tue May 05, 2009 7:13 pm

I just found my new screensaver, oldschool rails are the business!

dustymojave wrote:

Tue May 05, 2009 7:15 pm

i was originally thinking that a B pillar would make the rail to hard to access but seeing the new pictures makes me think other wise. it would be pretty easy to just "box" off the cross bracing with two straight down bars to create your B pillar.