Another build thread? Yep, my track-style T

[J. Robinson]

Well, it's been a while, but I finally got a pretty good day in on the roadster yesterday (Sat.). With all the modifications finished on the under-dash hoop, I was ready to weld in the side bars and then bond the whole assembly into the body.

I began by welding in the side bars. Since it is impossible to get a full 360 degrees around the tubes, gussets are a must. After finishing the side bars, I put a cross-bar in the main roll bar hoop about 3 inches below the top of the body. This piece is also gusseted at the corners and I included a bracket on each side so I can attach racing style shoulder harnesses later.

Once everything was welded in place (and cooled off) I moved on to bonding the cage to the body. To do this, I put a temporary "dam" of 2" masking tape on one side of the bars where I wanted to apply the bonding material. Next, I mixed up a big glob of Dynaglas fiberglass filler and packed it into the void between the bars and the fiberglass body. (It actually took 3 times to fill all the areas I wanted to bond; ya can't mix this stuff all at once or it will harden before you can use it.) After the the first round of filler was hard enough, I pulled all the masking tape, mixed up some more filler, and packed all the areas from the opposite sides. Finally, when all the filler was cured, I did some scraping and grinding to clean everything up.

There are a couple of areas where I will do some additional bonding when I "wood in" the body. When I'm done, the roll cage and body will be virtually one piece.