Jazzman’s #8745 "Flip Top" Build

[Jazzman]

Installing the roll bars turns out to be a slow and tedious process. I took a lot of photos, likely more than you want to see. Since I can only include seven photos per post, This will be split up into a couple of posts.

Before the roll bars could be installed, I had to be sure that the body was fully attached and could not move. I installed rivnuts at five location on either side of the car so that I can us 1/4"x20 bolts to attach the body. Working underneath the car with only inches of additional space for the rivnut tool, it was a slow and difficult job. It is done, however.



I am installing twin roll bars. I like the look, and my wife threatened me that she had better get a roll bar or she wasn't riding in this rocket!! (I admit it, she intimidates me!!) I decided to use the 1.75" Breeze roll bars because a) I like the height and lay back better than the FFR originals, and b) in my humble opinion, the 1.5" FFR bar are too small a diameter. To my eye, they look a little spindly. Because of the different diameter, and the slightly laid back design, the original holes marked on the body are close, but are not in the right place. I talked to Mark at Breeze, and he said the holes for his bars needed to be just a little bit rearward of the originals. He said the outboard holes need to be 1/4" back from the orignial FFR mark, and the inboard holes should be about 3/8" back. It turns out he was pretty darn close. (I know, what a surprise!!)

I started by trying to figure out where to drill the outboard holes. I drew grid lines over the circles marked by FFR. I put a work light right on top of the gridlines, and looked at the underside of the body.



I used the tube from the roll of paper towels as a surrogate for the bar inself. I cut the roll off so it was long enought to reach the back side of the body. By looking from the bottom of the body, I could line up the tube and identify where on the grid lines I should cut the hole. This worked quite well for the fore/aft location, not quite so well on the left/right side orientation. I could only see the tube from the side of the car, not the from the back. I went back to the top and drew on an approximate circle using the points i had identified from the underside. Using the motto "check twice, cut once", I checked three times to be sure I had lined it up. I then used the 1.75" hole saw to cut the hole. I used the long adapter pipe that actually goes on the rear leg to go down through the hole to see if my hole lined up with the angle of the attachment pipe on the frame. I measured the distance from the frame to the body, and factored in the lenght of the un-bent section of the roll bar. It appeared that the outside legs of the roll bars will actually go straight into the frame mounted fitting. The bend occurs almost exactly where the leg will go through the body. Therefore, the hole should be straight above frame mounted attachment point.

It turns out that I had to use a barrel sander attached to my drill to open up the hole and move it inboard, toward the side wall of the trunk. I have decided to use the trim rings around the outside of the roll bars. Now that I am in the process of installing them, I am really glad I made this decision. I gives you a good amount of room for error. Without the trim rings, you have to be perfect on all six holes! I am one hole in, and It is also crystal clear that I am not going to be perfect on even one hole!! I used the trim ring as a template to see how far I could open up the hole and still have the trim ring fully cover the hole. This worked very well. It took many iterations of 1) slde the pipe into the hole, 2) mark where the hole needs to be enlarged, 3) remove pipe, 4) sand the inside of hole up to the marks you made, 5) repeat. When the first hole was done, it turned out that the left/right alignment of the FFR mark was about 1/8" inboard of correct, and 1/4" forward of the correct location. Pretty close to Mark's 1/4" prediction. I repeated this process for the outboard hole on the DS. Two holes down, four to go.

I made the assumption that the Frame mounted mounting points are in a straight line. It had appeared that way to me, but it was an assumption at this point. (It turned out to be a correct one.) Now that I have two correct, fixed points, I used string to mark points where the other two, inboard, holes had to go.



It turned out that these points put the inboard holes about 1/2" back from the original FFR marks. I used a similar method of placing marks on the top of the body, placing a worklight about it, and confirming the location from the bottom with a paper towel tube.



More measure twice, mark the body, be sure it is right.



I cut the first inboard hole and began the process of making sure the front legs slid smoothly through the holes. This involved multiple iterations of install/mark/remove/sand/repeat.



I wanted to be sure that the front legs were going to fit without binding before I began working on the rear leg hole. This is when I confirmed that I had to deal with another issue before I could move forward with installing the roll bars.