Roll Bar Help
 

I've got a 72 K5 and am looking for a smittybuilt style roll bar. nothing crazy - just a 4-point, single cross-bar setup with attachment points behind the front seat and behind the rear wheel wells.

I've asked a bunch of fabricators in town (Austin, TX) about making one, and the feedback I've gotten so far is that it'll be super expensive to make one from scratch and to just buy a kit.

But I can't find a kit anywhere. I see a lot of people on here running them, though. Are people just fabricating their own or is there some sort of kit I'm unaware of?

Any info or advice would be much appreciated! Thanks!

Re: Roll Bar Help
 

Bronco Bob

Re: Roll Bar Help
 

There is a thread with all the dimensions, I can't imagine a shop that builds race cars couldn't fab you some thing simple up for a decent price.

Re: Roll Bar Help
 

I've bought 2 different roll bars from bronco bob. The first a family style that he made me and the pics on his web site is my Blazer. The second is more of just a roll bar like your wanting.

Re: Roll Bar Help
 

Make it yourself ! Buy some straight tubing and a few bend then weld it up.

Re: Roll Bar Help
 

I have a Smittybuilt bar in my Jimmy. I had the cage conversion too but had to cut it out when I put the soft top on my truck. The hard top has WAY more clearance than the soft top.

I will be building a cage for my teenagers Jimmy in the next 6 months or so and will then be building a second one for my Jimmy. At that point in time I will at least know how to do it!

Re: Roll Bar Help
 

Thanks for the help everyone! Bought one from Bronco Bob - he was super helpful and is going to re-draw the CAD file to get the angles I want right.

I'll send pics when I get it - thanks again!

Re: Roll Bar Help
 

Did you ever get the bar delivered and installed?

Re: Roll Bar Help
 

I'm in the final stages of a broncobob 4pt roll cage. I'm close enough (CA) that they were able to ship it with the hoop in one piece. I coped the tubing last weekend and will be welding it up this week. There's a powder coater about 20min away that has agreed to blast it, zinc plate it, then powder coat it for $250. All-in-all I'm pretty happy with the process, but don't confuse yourself that it will be "simple". There's a ton of work to do around prepping assembling, or any customization you want to do. With the raw cage, shipping, and finish coating, I'm probably going to be into this thing for about $600.

Re: Roll Bar Help
 

Thanks for the info. Would be interested in seeing pics of the process and finished product if you have any.

BP

Re: Roll Bar Help
 

Gladly. I'll snap some photos over the next couple weeks as I get it welded up, powdered, and bolted in place. You just have to promise not to judge my welds :)

Re: Roll Bar Help
 

No need to worry about me, never welded...

Re: Roll Bar Help
 

I went with a Bronco Bob roll cage as well. See my build in this thread. http://67-72chevytrucks.com/vboard/s...=624544&page=6
Starts on post #148 on Page 6 and continues to page 7
Good luck!

Re: Roll Bar Help
 

I put some work in over the weekend and made it to near completion of the assembly. As promised, here are a few notes and pictures.

1) Specifying the product
As a reminder, I started off with the "Bronco Bob" 4pt roll bar. For my particular application I asked them to ship the kit with the hoop as 1 piece - if this is at all an option for you, DO IT! I also had them include a spare straight tube, notched on one end, that was the same width as the hoop so that I can use it as a harness bar behind the rear bench. I also ordered 4 threaded seatbelt bungs.

2) Shipping & Receiving
I failed to take a picture, but the kit comes wrapped in plastic wrap and creates a small amount of cosmetic damage that you'll need to clean up before painting or powder coating. Otherwise, shipping was smooth and the supplier was easy to work with.
https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/Gf...KxOn1cCJQ=w800

3) Trimming
I found that I needed to trim about an inch off of the legs of the main hoop to make it fit just below my soft top (which is lower than the hard top - I was able to use the front support hoop for the soft top for positioning).
https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/J4...8aDza3IBE=w800
https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/0F...U-48dBleM=w800
https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/k9...UFeT0-oMg=w800

I also found that to make the upper horizontal portions of the "kickers" parallel to the bedsides I needed to trim the bottoms of the kickers by about 1deg so that the legs slope slightly forward where they hit the foot plates. For my specific application I needed to trim the harness bar to match the spacing of the kickers at the hoop.

4) Coping/Notching
Each of the kickers need to be coped, and for me I needed to cope my harness bar as well. Fortunately, the folks at all4fun (broncobob) had already coped one end of my harness bar so I was able to make a template with poster board.
https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/uE...x27KpFRuo=w800
I don't have a tubing notcher so I used a die grinder to notch the new tubes. One thing to note - where the kickers meet the hoop you need to notch the tubes at an angle. I found that angle to be 11.5deg.

5) Practice!
If you've ever welded, you know - scrap metal is your best friend. Make sure to keep any scraps you get from trimming so that you can use it to practice and set your welder settings correctly. Here's my first scrap piece and you can see how bad my initial settings/welds turned out. Someone more experienced might not have this issue, but I sure as hell do!
https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/J5...caO-2fELE=w800


6) Attaching the feet
This part is pretty straightforward, make sure your cuts are square, create some centering marks, and tack the feet onto the hoop and kickers.
https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/Kk...8caJx-4pE=w800
https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/r5...cEuKKlnuE=w800
https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/j2...doOdyRPUg=w800
Once they're tacked and you're happy with the results, complete the welds.

7) Dry fitting
With the feet attached, complete a final dry fitting of all the pieces
https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/vv...Yxobm1wjo=w800

8) Anchor the feet
Once you're satisfied with the dry fitting, pilot the holes for the feet (making sure they don't strike anything important underneath and that you'll be able to seat nuts and washers underneath.
https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/jE...roEqWWAX0=w800
https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/X-...0OT3etrzE=w800

9) Tack the joints
With the feet anchored, go ahead and tack the joints. I prefer starting with small tacks all around then going back and beefing up at least one on each axis of the joint.
https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/3p...4vD_65hUQ=w800

Well, that's as far as I made it. This weekend I'm going to finish the cage and I'll post that as well. Hopefully this is entertaining if not helpful :)

Re: Roll Bar Help
 

FWIW, don't call it a roll bar. Call it an appliance bar. Many insurance companies will not insure vehicles with roll bars. If it's not fastened to the frame, it's not a roll bar in their eyes.

Re: Roll Bar Help
 

X2 And I would try to catch something much stronger than the floor anyway to protect you and your loved ones should you need to. Stay safe!

Re: Roll Bar Help
 

Yep. I have frame standoffs that I'll be fabricating while the main cage is off for powder coat.

Re: Roll Bar Help
 

Very good; great looking rig!!

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More progress made. I had originally planned to weld on some harness belt guides to the rear harness bar to guide the belts from the floor mounted reels up and forward to the rear seat. I had a slight change of plans since I plan to revert to the original bench seat (if I can ever find one that's reasonably priced) so I'm going to create a bolt on guide solution so that we can shift it side-to-side later. I welded in seatbelt bungs to the front hoop so that I can update the front belts from lap to three-point.

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Back from powder!

Re: Roll Bar Help
 

looking good!

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Merry post-Christmas. Santa brought me some helpers (family) to get the cage and some fresh black carpet in.