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Thu May 14, 2020 5:13 pm

I found a couple cracks in the body of my 66 baja. Should I just clean it up and weld it or is this a sign of some sort of body fatigue or other bigger problem?

It looks like this on both sides.

Thu May 14, 2020 5:29 pm

Been jumping the car? Yes, you can weld it up.

Thu May 14, 2020 6:05 pm

Body fatigue is normal. All of these cars have rust and since the metal is thin it doesn't take much "surface rust" to substantially weaken the structure. In the 2 classic Baja and Buggy building books they talk about using a roll cage to strengthen the structure. I looked a 2'Baja's before I bought my std beetle. Both of them had large gaps showing at the seams and the doors were sagging big time. Just beat to death.

You need to weld the spreading seams and add some doubler plates on the inside.

Mon May 18, 2020 12:56 am

You probably have sagging doors. If so, then supporting the door frame near the hinge from a roll cage would be good.

Tue May 19, 2020 10:13 pm

dustymojave wrote: You probably have sagging doors. If so, then supporting the door frame near the hinge from a roll cage would be good.

I'd love to but I have a few issues installing a roll cage.

1. I wont ever remove the body from the pan. Not gonna happen.
2. I need a fully useable back seat in this car.
3. I dont have a tubing bender

Sun May 24, 2020 8:33 pm

So to answer ALL 3 of those issues, I suggest getting an EMPI 6-point show cage (their attorneys are too scared of someone crashing their Bug with an EMPI cage in it and it possibly failing somehow and them having to pay millions (stupid it seems, but in modern (since the 1960s) Tort (liability) law, it most definitely is valid legally for them to have such fear so they have to call it a "show" bar instead of a "roll" bar.) I consider it to be adequate for a base for a roll cage for a race car and I've been inspecting race car roll bars and cages since 1963. But it bolts together inside the car, and leaves room for folks in the stock back seat. Check out the Class 11 style Bug that started out with AZ-Bug and was sold to Brian. It has an EMPI 6-point cage.
https://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=...mp;start=0

Wed May 27, 2020 1:12 pm

Hey cool! So that can be assembled inside of the car? I might order one this week then.

Wed May 27, 2020 3:07 pm

Some of the people selling bolt in roll cages are cutting the main hoop in half to get cheaper shipping.

Wed May 27, 2020 6:30 pm

rayjay wrote: Some of the people selling bolt in roll cages are cutting the main hoop in half to get cheaper shipping.

I saw that. I can easily make a slip joint and weld it back together if that isnt a safety issue

Sun May 31, 2020 8:42 pm

I got the empi cage and it fits in just fine. I plan to add some extra tubes to triangulate obvious weaknesses. Should all added tubes be the same wall thickness as the main cage? Do brick and mortar stores ever carry appropriate tubing for the task? I'd rather not have to freight some 8 foot sections of tube to where I live...

Mon Jun 01, 2020 4:29 am

The big box stores only have black iron plumbing pipe. Any small fab steel they sell is massively over priced. See if you can find a friendly local fab shop or race car shop that will sell you some tubing or can make a recommendation for buying steel.

I do occasionally buy fab metal from HD or Lowes. I just bought a small plate of .063 / 16 ga and I have a 36" length of 1/8" x 3" wide plate that I used for some lawn mower deck mods. These might make good floor plate doublers. You can't just weld the tubing to the body metal and have good results imo.

Also don't assume that all the hdwe stores carry the same stuff. Around here only Lowes has the 1/8" x 3" that is so useful. I have had some specific short lengths of metal shipped in and it's not expensive in short sections. I have gotten metal from Aircraft Spruce and also off ebay when I needed say a 3' section of DOM for a project. If you want to make something that 'nests' and need DOM make sure the DOM in question is first quality. I got some Chinese DOM off ebay and it was "nominal'' - read out of spec and wouldn't work without machining. American made DOM would have slide together with no problem.

I would stick with .095 ERW for structural members.

Fri Jun 05, 2020 1:38 am

The only issue I have with a cage is head clearance. Depending on their design, your seat type, and restraint system, they could cause more damage that good from a head strike. You need to insure that you and your passengers CAN NOT strike their heads on the cage when properly restrained. There are many hospital head injuries from this cause, even from just hitting bumps hard or at a weird angle. Me and my family always where helmets, but not everybody does.

Fri Jun 05, 2020 6:28 am

Thatd a valid concern. We're all very short people though, I'm the tallest at 5'6".

I could see side-to-side motion whipping us into a diagonal somewhere if I'm not careful about where I put them. Thanks for the tip.

How would you brace the luggage tray area, btw? Even in its basic form the two forward hoops look okay. The luggage rack beams seem almost superficial the way it installs.

Fri Jun 05, 2020 8:06 am

Put padding on the roll bars and it will be safer than the rest of the hard surfaces in the interior.

Tue Jun 09, 2020 11:16 pm

Coyotemutt wrote: Thatd a valid concern. We're all very short people though, I'm the tallest at 5'6".

I could see side-to-side motion whipping us into a diagonal somewhere if I'm not careful about where I put them. Thanks for the tip.

How would you brace the luggage tray area, btw? Even in its basic form the two forward hoops look okay. The luggage rack beams seem almost superficial the way it installs.

Yes. Head clearance is VERY important. Make sure even at extreme out of place, you can't hit your noggin'. Or anyone else in your family. But the roll cage is no more dangerous than the inner structure of the body shell. A pillars, B pillars, windshield, steering wheel.

How to brace the luggage tray area? As in the shelf behind the back seat? As in how to support the ends of the rear braces on the roll cage?
If that is your question, I braced mine up from the ends of the trans mount yokes, and up from the outer ends of the torsion housing:

The 2 tubes coming up from below meet at the doubler plate under the shelf at the roll cage rear brace ends.

Wed Jun 10, 2020 1:57 am

rayjay wrote: Put padding on the roll bars and it will be safer than the rest of the hard surfaces in the interior.

Wrong, wrong, wrong. Luckily (I hope), that none of you have seen someone die due to a head strike on a roll bar, I HAVE. It was just supposed to be a last minute adjustment ride before a race. Since that was the purpose, the driver wasn't wearing his helmet, things went wrong, and we'll just leave it at that. Now for the physics.

The round part is the roll bar, the oblong shape is the head. In the right picture is a mockup of a bugs top. In the middle picture we see the head striking the roll bar (we'll say with a 100lbs. of force). Since the head will only strike about 1/4" of the bar (due to its small diameter), the force is about 400 lbs. per square inch. Plenty to cause a MASSIVE skull fracture, and death. In the right picture we see the scull striking the window, side of the car, whatever, with the same 100 lbs. of force. However, the point of contact is about 5". That means the force of the scull is subjected to 20 lbs. per square inch instead of 400. Headache for sure, but survivable.

As I said before, I am not anti roll bar, you just need to be aware of the EXTRA safety precautions when installing one. To pad it correctly you need to do this.

https://nasaspeed.news/tech/safety/installing-roll-cage-padding/

Not this

https://www.amazon.com/Foam-Roll-Cage-Padding-Purple/dp/B079Q7G659

Wed Jun 10, 2020 1:17 pm

Dusty, 5hose pics say it all! Thanks! Since I dont have a bender, I was thinking of going straight from the empi cage to the torsion housing through the body behind the rear seat. Your solution is alot cleaner though.

As for padding, I'll look up that directional foam for sure. I found a couple spots me and a front passenger might hit in an extreme situation.

Wed Jun 10, 2020 7:00 pm

Padding in appropriate locations on a cage is a good idea. But not a cure-all. Nor is building a car to use hard offroad without a roll bar or cage.

The concept presented in the post above with diagrams makes some sense on the surface. But in practical application in just aint the way that presents it.
- The human head is not a flat sided oval shape and it will NEVER strike the inside of the car as a flat surface to a flat surface. I've hit my head on the driver's side window in my '65 Baja and knocked myself out. The car fortunately coming to rest not far beyond without hitting anything else. And I was wearing 5-point belts at the time. The shoulder hits the door of the car before the head hits IF the body is not restrained. With the body restrained, the neck flexes and the head hits at an angle. In my case, the upper smaller radius of my skull hit the flat of the window making for a small contact area and high Psi impact. The roll bar in the car was clear of my head and was padded. My 58 Baja has the same roll bar, added onto to make it a full roll cage, again, still quite clear of my head. I could STILL hit my head on the window and injure myself. Should we ban windows in Baja Bugs? I think not.
- Another issue I have with those diagrams above. And I KNOW that they are intended as simplifications, BUTTTTTT.......
The inside of the car is not simple and smooth as shown. The upper structure of the car's body shell above the door where a roll cage bar will be placed, has it's own rounded structure to hit the head if one is not properly restrained. So should we require that all Baja Bugs should have the roof cut off? And no cage? That's OK, then we can simply hit our heads on the ground instead.

The answer as I see it is to have roll cage that is intelligently built, and seats well mounted in the car and properly supportive, and proper seat belts worn properly. I see in here LOTS of cars with the roll bar and seat set so that the 'B' pillar of the cage is beside the driver or passenger's shoulder instead of behind it. I ESPECIALLY see a LOT of this in the back seat area where kids will ride. And ESPECIALLY in play cars, not in race cars.

Wed Jun 10, 2020 7:58 pm

I made the B pillar follow the pillar in the car. That puts it by the knees of the back seat and well behind my head as a driver. Fortunately me and my whole family are small (I'm tallest at 5'6") so as long as we stay properly restrained most of the car is beyond the reach of our skulls.

Got me thinking I should really get setup up with better seats and harnesses. I have stock high back seats and belts right now. We dont drive anything like racers though. We just take forest trails a bit more "spirited" than others in the forest.

Thu Jun 11, 2020 3:24 pm

Dusty, Are you having a bad day or what.

Did I ever say that I was anti roll bar? IF YOU WOULD HAVE READ MY POSTS, I mentioned having proper seats, restraining devices (shoulder harnesses, 4, 5 or 6 point), and making sure that there is clearance between our most valuable body part (head), and anything that we might add to our cars.

Did I spend a lot of time on my drawings? NO, I just whipped them out in AutoCAD, to get a point across, that many people do not even think about when modifying their cars.

So in all of your wisdom, you took the most important aspect of all motor sports (safety), made fun of my representation then supported it.

Yes the body stretches (how was Dale Earnhardt killed), and you even said that it happened to you, yet you make fun of my efforts to educate.

I am not insulted by you personally, what I do take issue with is your bashing of what may be common knowledge to you but not others.

WHEN LIVES ARE INVOLVED, THERE IS NO SHORTCUT TO SAFETY