You Learn a Lot About Cars When you Ruin Them (on Purpose)

[Mike Tries]

Time to go racing, boys! (About time.)





PSA: If you own an Avant, be sure to clean behind the trim above the trunk lid.





There are a lot of parts in these cars. A lot of it is going on the garbage. I have a classified ad up for any bits you all may be interested in. Hit me up there or message me if you need something.

[Mike Tries]

18 hours straight through last night and we now have a version 1 main hoop bent up (for testing), and the dash is (mostly) out. There's no going back now, boys! This is either a race car or it's scrap metal.

By the way, everything up until this point has been relatively straightforward. Even rebuilding the engine, by comparison to the dash, was easy enough. The dashboard, though? Oh. Mygod. 90% of it is NOT going back in. I am quite sure that by the time you find yourself needing to repair something that requires the dash removal you are either totaling the car, racing it, or are quite possibly the most dedicated mechanic in history. This part of the car was built to go together, not to be serviced.

FYI: For any of you brave enough to pull the steel dash bar off, you need to know what there is a 10 mm screw, inside the engine compartment, protruding downwards INTO the dash bar support. It is behind the ECU box. You likely need to OPEN the ECU box to get your tools to the screw. This had us baffled for 2 hours until we found it.

(Edit: some typos and I tried to fix these links.)

Coffee grinder is broken:


But it's worth it:


Checking helmet clearance with a piece of random tube:


Our test dolly:


Ugh. Done for the night!

[Mike Tries]

Hippo helped me remove the driver's side doors today. Good job, buddy! Then I bent up a V2 main hoop. It fits oh so nice!

[Mike Tries]

I needed more material to patch my floor, so I gutted another door. The end result is squarely in the "good enuf" column. I hosed it down with primer and focused on the dash bar removal after that.

I do not know if I could ever get this dash back together with all the fasteners of I had to. I sincerely hope this thing works when I try to start it! I had to move a lot of wires out of the way to make way for the forward tubes, which is the primary reason for doing it. Also that rubber foam needed to go. Weight -1, NVH +4.

Progress!

[Danisson]

This is madness ! God, you have lots of patience man ! Appreciate your dedication to it and hope it'll turn out just the way you want it to ;)

[Mike Tries]

Many others have done this before me. Some have succeeded. Some have failed. I don't know for sure whether I'll find success or failure, but the journey has been worthwhile and enjoyable so far.

Does anyone know where I can find brake coolant?

[deyrag]

Does anyone know where I can find brake coolant?

Try water injection?

[Mike Tries]

Good morning! You're probably wondering why I gathered you all here today. Well, so am I. How about some roll cage pictures instead? I spent the evening last night watching True Lies while working on the main hoop, so there was some progress.

While we're on the subject, True Lies was a fantastic movie that I believe to be one of Schwarzenegger's greatest works. If you haven't seen that movie, I suggest you watch it as soon as you can. Perhaps today if you aren't too busy. If you want to watch it now, it's on Hulu. I'll wait for you to return, and then we can discuss it.

In the meantime, I cut some wood blocks to represent the rocker boxes. You can see them in one of the images here. I had a 4 x 4 post that was there to support a hammock in my yard, but I no longer have the hammock and I no longer want to mow around a post, so I repurposed it for roll cage construction. Rest assured, dear reader, that the wood blocks will not be the permanent rocker box solution: I need something lighter than wood, and a hollow steel box will do the trick just fine. Plus, it's rather hard to weld to wood (though, to be fair, I've never really tried).

If I were to compare the step in the process that I'm on with the timeline of True Lies, I'd say that I'd like to be farther ahead than when Dana was being introduced as sort of the rebellious teen, stealing money from Harry's partner, Gib, before taking off on the back of her boyfriend's motorcycle, but it certainly feels like that's where I am. If I consider all the deconstruction that had to happen before I got to this point, though, I do feel like I'm closer to the scene where Harry was trying to give Helen some adventure by giving her the role of Doris and having her meet him in that hotel. After he got bashed in the back of the head by the phone, but just before the terrorists came in through the door to take them both away. I'm hoping to be near the nuclear detonation scene by the end of this weekend, both in terms of the timeline and in terms of raw, nail-biting excitement. Pop some popcorn!

Other than cutting the bottoms of the main hoop to their final dimensions, which was a big step, believe me, I was able to move onto mocking up the potential locations for the harness bar. I want the cross bracing to meet the harness bar at the middle of the X that I'll be making so that I don't have three segments for the harness bar if possible. It looks like that's going to be feasible. While I used what I thought to be a piece of scrap steel in the image here, it actually fits quite well and I may end up using it. It just needs to be cleaned up a bit, which steel wool may do.

Trivia: in the bridge scene, where Harry pulls Helen out of the sun roof of the runaway limousine just before it plunges into the Gulf of Mexico, Jamie Lee Curtis' screaming and fear were real, and were not just her masterful acting. They actually pulled her from the car onto a helicopter, and it was not, in fact, a stunt double or a green screen.

[Mike Tries]

Tonight, we're going to talk about cross bracing the main hoop.

And also Die Hard.

The SCCA GCR (General Competition Rulebook) states that the main hoop must have a diagonal brace in the main hoop. Most people, it seems, like to install two, making an X. If done right, the harness bar can come right on along and smash right into the middle of the X, thus reducing the number of components needed to span the full width.

But hey. Hold on there cowboy. We're not there yet.

Now, channeling my inner John McClane, I decided to go at this thing tonight until I was covered in blood (mostly my own), and until I had a bad headache. I never got the headache, thankfully, but I'm pretty tired. I was able to cut the primary diagonal brace, fish mouth it, and tack it in. The secondary diagonal is necessarily comprised of two segments that join along the primary. I was able to get the first component in by the time Die Hard With a Vengeance was over.

You see, I decided to watch the original trilogy in reverse order tonight. I love DH3 as a standalone movie because it has the added flare of the ever so talented Samuel L. Jackson playing a lead role alongside Bruce Willis' John McLane. Seeing that I was the endurance to keep pushing tonight, I opted for my favorite DH movie, DH2. Not only does DH2 have a sensational plot, with excellent character development (especially for an action flick), I enjoy movies where snow makes an appearance. This was especially true tonight with the Mid-June heat lingering--watching someone else be cold helps me forget about the heat a bit.

The cage is coming along well. I got it into the car again to test fit it, and it is still retaining the dimensions I want. It's also really well centered. I was worried that the middle of the X would be off of the centerline of the car by a few inches, but it looks dead on.

Tomorrow, I'll get the second segment of the secondary diagonal brace tacked in, and then work on the harness bar. I'll also complete the DH trilogy by getting into the Nakatomi Tower film. It's often cited negatively for being a bit claustrophobic by critics due to the fact that the whole film takes place inside a single office building, but I disagree with that assessment. While it is indeed claustrophobic, I believe that quality helps draw the viewer into the struggle that McLane is engaged in. It helps you feel like you're there with him.

[Mike Tries]

Today, we can talk about the light at the end of the tunnel insofar as this main hoop is concerned. Diagonal bracing is cut, tacked in, and looking straight. I also tacked in the harness bar (driver side half), but that will have to be removed so I can weld around the diagonal brace.

It never hurts to plan ahead, and that is what has kept the mistakes to a minimum, and to a manageable magnitude when they do occur. You have to think clearly when you're planning your next move, just like John McClane had to think ahead in Die Hard in order to defeat Hans and his goons.

You see, Hans Gruber had a plan that kept him at least three steps ahead of law enforcement for most of the film. He took hostages, waited a long as possible to start making demands (in order to give his computer expert, Theo, enough time to trip the vault's emergency safeguard), and then led off with classic misdirection by demanding the release of terrorist prisoners around the world. In fact, Gruber wanted money, and the vault had plenty of it, but if law enforcement thought he just wanted his buddies freed, and then later thought he was killed in an accidental explosion, he could walk away Scott free, and rich as hell.

Yippie ki yay.

The hardest part about the job tonight was getting the harness bar cut right. But that was a matter of patience and taking it one step at a time, just like McClane took on only a pair of terrorists at a time. When you break a large job, like cutting tubes or shooting terrorists, into smaller tasks, the job becomes less daunting. The impossible becomes possible.

Tomorrow, I may take the day off from cage construction, but Saturday or Sunday I can go full tilt and spend the whole day (or both days) racking up the tube count, just like McClane's body count.

Tonight's trivia: Did you know that Die Hard 1 was filmed, almost in its entirety, in Fox Plaza? This building was the headquarters of 20th Century Fox, the distributor of the film itself!

[Mike Tries]

I had a couple of hours last night to work on the cage. I need to chop the tacks holding the harness bar in, weld up the cross tubes, reinstall the harness bar, and cut the mirror side of the harness bar and install that. I wanted to make sure my welding skills are as sharp as they're going to be though, so I spent a few hours behind the torch instead, practicing on some short scrap tubes, and watching Live Free or Die Hard.

In the fourth installment of this trilogy of five, John McClane was in way over his head. He finds himself in an era where everything is digital, much like the Weldpro unit I am welding with for this project, and he is unable to comprehend the magnitude of the task at hand by himself. Enter Matt Farrell.

Farrell, played by the highly talented Justin Long, plays a computer scientist whose code was used unwittingly as a component to a digital Fire Storm, which is an act of cyberterrorism that intends to destroy an entire financial system. In this case, the Fire Storm was meant as both a decoy to cover up the real crime, and as a means to accomplish the real crime, which was basically a giant digital heist.

Together, Farrell and McClane uncover the plot by Thomas Gabriel, played by Timothy Olyphant, and put and end to his scheme by shooting (sometimes with bullets, and sometimes with cars), all of his terrorist buddies. McClane finishes of Gabriel by shooting Gabriel in the chest--with Gabriel's own handgun--by grabbing the gun that was being held against McClane's chest as he was being held by Gabriel and pulling the trigger, thus shooting himself in the process.

Yippie ki yay.

Much of my time on task last night was focusing on getting some welding practice with the TIG components of this welder. I will break out the MIG again today, to see which welds are easier, better, and safer. Whichever seems best is what I'll use to weld up the main hoop today so I can finish that off.

I did break out the hammer and beat some 9-inch-long sheet steel into submission--just like how McClane beat the bad guys into submission in Live Free or Die Hard. The sheet steel will be used to support the main hoop on the structure of the car (see images). The driver side fit perfectly, but the passenger side needs a little work to shave down the tube a bit more. Just like how McClane's family relationships always need work.

There is always a sub plot in Die Hard movies where one of McClane's family relationships--historically his marriage with his ex-wife, Holly--is in jeopardy. Often, this family member ends up as one of the hostages, with the notable exception of Die Hard With a Vengence (where Holly did not appear at all). Live Free or Die Hard carried on the tradition of an alienated McClane who must save his family with the introduction of Lucy Gennaro McClane.

Lucy, his daughter, is introduced to the audience as she is cultivating a new relationship with a potential boyfriend (though she seems less into him than he is into her). Her father shows up at the first sign of relationship trouble (the couple working out just how far they're willing to take things), and puts a stop to it. Lucy, obviously frustrated, calls her father "John", a new recurring theme among his kids, as well as a plot device used to show the audience that there is a great deal of history leading up to the dialog here.

Lucy, sharp and quick witted, is captured by Gabriel, and held hostage, but she does make an heroic effort to make this as frustrating as possible for Gabriel, at one point even pulling the trigger of the holstered side arm belonging to Emerson (played by Edoardo Costa), discharging a round squarely into Emerson's foot.

People, if you carry, do yourself and those around you a favor and do not chamber a round. It's bad form, really.

If the landing pads I made work out, then I can make two more for the front hoop. They'll need a little boxing in on the front and back, but they are probably going to do what I need them to do.

Trivia time: did you know that the role of "Washington D.C." was actually played by Baltimore, Maryland?

[Mike Tries]

Some days you win, other days you win but it's funnier:

We tried to bend the main hoop inward on itself a bit so that it can reach the floor when we remove the rocker boxes. We succeeded, but the bend only occurred on one leg, so it sits at a weird angle now. This is because we made the bend by removing the lower segment of the segmented diagonal bar and the harness bar, kind of leaving the left 1/3 of the hoop unsupported. We then pulled it snug with a ratchet strap and welded in a shorter diagonal segment, thus keeping the bar at the newer (but weirder) shape. Obviously, it can't stay like this forever, but as I was considering this, I realized that I could take advantage of its temporary weird shape by fixing it later on and kind of leaving it this way for now.

I don't even have to waste that much material when it's all said and done. I'll simply cut out the now-shortened cross brace, use that to finish the harness bar (which is shorter than the diagonal), and put in a longer tube like I had in there before. It will return to its original size. It's just like the life of Daniel (Danny) Roman from tonight's movie, the Negotiator.

You see, Danny Roman is one of Chicago's most-gifted hostage negotiators. He also has a lead role on the precinct's Disability Fund. It just so happens that the disability fund has come up a bit short in recent months. Danny's partner, Nate, was close to figuring out who was behind the plot, so he was murdered in cold blood. The killer knew Danny was coming to meet with Nate, so the murder happened just before Danny arrived. The scene was set for a framing!

Danny's life takes two steps back:

Danny was investigated by internal affairs. Somebody planted evidence in Danny's house while it was being searched in conjunction with a search warrant. This led to his indictment, and would have led to his arrest. To top it off, the people closest to Danny didn't seem to believe that he was innocent. Even his lawyer gave up on him and told him to make a plea agreement.

Danny takes his life into his own hands:

Danny was left with no choice. He had to prove his innocence, and a court room was not going to be the place to do it, given how he was being set up. He knew that Terence Niebaum, Internal Affairs, had something to do with the plot, so he took that man hostage, along with a few other key people who could lead him to prove his innocence. Just like Danny, I felt like I had no choice but to make the modifications to the main hoop like I did, unless I wanted to be left unable to reach the upper welds on the cage. Something had to be done, and while I may have not made the best choice, I think the choice I made will work out.

Just like how Danny was able to work with the people around him to get himself out of trouble, I'm going to work with the tools that I have. I'll cut the lower diagonal out, ratchet strap the cage back to the final dimensions, and remake the lower diagonal (as well as both harness bars). I'll weld most of the main hoop completely, but I'll leave the driver's side harness bar and the driver's side lower diagonal out so that I can flex the hoop while I build the cage to allow it to drop. The lower diagonal and harness bar will be installed near the end, as there is plenty of room for them anyway.

Probably the best solution to this whole thing would have been to simply remove the diagonal and harness bars, weld up everything else on the main hoop, and simply leave the ratchet strap on it. The only setback now is a little time to remake those two bars and a little lost material. It's not a big deal.

Hey, we got the rocker boxes tacked in! I think it was a net-forward gain, especially after gaining some know-how. Don't let stuff like this stop you in your projects! Be like Danny: don't give up, believe in yourself, and take hostages if you have to!

[Mike Tries]

Good evening gents! I was able to get the main hoop back in shape and get it into the car again. This time, it's tacked to the rocker boxes. It sits in there nice and level, it's planar (meaning there is no twist), and the width is where I want it. Much like how Ferris Bueller was right where he wanted to be on his ninth sick day of the semester.

Have you ever finished watching a movie, and then--there you are 25 years later--you realize that the protagonist in the awesome adventure mischief movie was really just a malevolent narcissist? I'm not suggesting that Bueller didn't deserve a day off, and my gosh, Dean of Students Edward Rooney sure had it out for Bueller in a most-unhealthy manner, but Bueller pulled everybody into his scheme, and I'd suggest that he was even responsible for the destruction of Cameron's father's 1961 Ferrari 250 GT California.

What. You don't believe me? You blame Cameron for it because he was the one who took the car to begin with? Well, yes, Cameron should be held partially responsible, but Bueller manipulated him in almost every way imaginable, completely consistent with Narcissist Personality Disorder.

In fact, Bueller manipulated everybody around him just so that he could go to the Cubs / Braves game. It's not healthy behavior.

You know what is healthy behavior? Getting that main hoop fixed. I cut out the shortened lower diagonal and remade it. The harness bar can be simply reinstalled, but I will wait on that. I will also refrain from installing the lower diagonal. This will give me some much needed flexibility for later. The hoop is tacked to the rocker boxes, and I started looking at how to do the front hoop next. I think I can keep it high and tight against the roof line and A Pillar because the body just seems to be shaped to accept to cage tubing!

Trivia time: in Ferris Bueller's Day Off, the trio actually did go to a real baseball game to film that scene. It is believed to be the June 5, 1985 Cubs / Braves game, which the Cubs lost 4-2 in 11 innings.

[Mike Tries]

Oh! Hi! I didn't see you come in. I'm glad you're here. Please, make yourself comfortable. Can I get you anything? I have beer, wine, and Coke products.

Milk? No problem. And yes, I have plenty of ice. Give me a second.

Alright, now that we're all set, I'd like to talk to you about the roll cage progression.

And also Taco Bell's Cheez-It Tostada.

You see, Taco Bell is always looking for ways to innovate inside the Mexican cuisine, fast food restaurant space. With so many partner options, from Doritos and Mountain Dew, to Cheez-It, there are many ways to innovate. However, only so many of them have the potential to become hits. By partnering with Cheez-It, Taco Bell knocked it out of the park!

It all starts with a solid foundation. In this case, we're talking about a monstrous Cheez-It cracker. Much like how a roll cage needs a solid chassis to mount to, the filling and toppings of the Cheez-It Tostada require a solid, cheesy base. Cheez-It delivers. As you build up layers of toppings, you end up with a complete product, just like we are closing in on a finished roll cage.

This weekend, I was able to call in a few friends and my dad, and supply them with food and refreshments, and we just went to town on this rig. We landed a pair of forward tubes, reinforced the landing spot for the rear mains, and bent up and installed a nice windshield bar. We rounded off the weekend by getting the dash back in the car for mockup purposes. Seriously, this wouldn't be as fun or successful without their help and guidance!

Sometimes, a product, like the Cheez-It Tostada, becomes a success by doing one or two key things right. Just like how the Cheez-It Tostada became a hit with the substitution of a Cheez-It for the traditional (and frankly boring, by today's standards) tortilla; I think we found two key tricks that are going to make this cage a little extra special, and I wanted to talk about them here.

First and foremost, I wanted to get the forward tubes to land in front of the A pillar. This car has small door openings, and you don't notice until you try to hop out of a containment seat with a helmet on without kicking the bars and falling on your face. Landing the bars forward of the A pillar does three things in my view: 1.) it gets the bars out of the way, 2.) it pushes the knee bar forward so that it doesn't interfere with your legs, and 3.) it just looks good.

Would you like another glass of milk? Sure. I'll get some now.

Now, it isn't always possible or desirable to do this. Some cars don't have space to work, and this necessitates a design that drops the bars sooner. Some drivers or series don't want to modify the dash pad, either. That brings me to the second thing that we did that I think was kind of neat.

I want a nice, clean descent through the dash pad for the tubes. I would like the tubes to look like they were dropped through a single hole on each side of the dash without chunks missing. This is another thing that may not be possible depending on your car. So, we marked out the cuts on the sides of the dash pad that needed to be cut, peeled back the soft "leatherette" top, and hacked away a bunch of structure below with an angle grinder. I will pull it back out this week, and make a simple slice through the pad, to each side, and cut a nice, neat hole. I'll just wrap it around the bars, then, and hide the slice.

If that doesn't ultimately work, I'll hack it to bits with a saw.

No need to worry about that. I think that, just like the Taco Bell Cheez-It Tostada, this plan is going to work beautifully. It just goes to show you: a little imagination goes a long way!

[Mike Tries]

OK, time for a quicker-to-write and less bizarre update. Regular shenanigans will return soon, but this time, I wanted to share some wisdom that might help future race car builders who read this otherwise nonsensical slurry of silly. This is the removal of the underlay, or that material that is both tar-like and rock-solid at the same time somehow.

What is underlay?

Well, the underlay seems to be there to reduce NVH (Noise Vibration Harshness). It's a hard and gooey mat of material on the floor of your car that dampens vibrations. It's also apparently placed in a way that allows it to overlap seams, so it probably prevents squeaking there too.

Why do racers hate it?

We don't hate it. We hate weight. A lot. If I can cut it, burn it, drill it, or smash it out of my race car; or otherwise make something that exists--that I don't like--not exist anymore, I will make it not be in the car. Also, you can't weld to this stuff, and I'm pretty sure I don't want to be near it if there is fire around.

What did the underlay ever do to you?

I told you this wasn't going to be silly. Don't ask silly questions.

Why did you make a post about underlay? Just remove it and be done with it.

This stuff is tough to remove! It seems to be rock solid, but it could also just be an absolutely ghastly-viscous fluid. If you grind it, it makes a mess and takes forever. If you try to scrape it, you'll be at it forever. It's really tough, and scrapers are hard to get under it. This stuff was meant to last all the way into the big grinder at the recycler. I'm not even sure how they deal with it there, because they'll have chips of metal with this stuff stuck to them. Maybe they just burn it.

The best way to remove it is with dry ice (that's Martian Snow for you astrophysisists out there). That's what I did, and the results were better than I expected. What I want you to take away from this is the importance of the dry ice and maybe a few lessons learned.

1.) Don't just dump it all in at once. Pick two sections, cover them well with perhaps Aluminum foil (Aluminium foil for my non-American friends out there), and the keep the rest of your dry ice in a cooler. I dumped it everywhere at once and some sections evaporated before I got to them. Just freeze the section you're ready to work on.

2.) Be smart. This stuff isn't just cold enough to burn you, it's also toxic. It can kill you. It probably won't burn you or poison you, but keep in mind that you'll be working with it inside a car. That's an enclosed space with a solid poison that is turning into gaseous poison as quickly as physics allows. You also may be wearing safety gear and things which may limit your peripheral visibility... make sure you don't sit on the stuff.

3.) When baking, consider this change when dealing with butter. Instead of softening it for cookies or brownies, melt it instead, completely. Do this on the stove. Don't stop the second it melts, though. Continue on until it turns a nutmeg brown color. This will enhance the overall flavor of the cookies by bringing sort of a nutty, caramelized flavor into them.

4.) Be patient. But go quickly. Kind of a fast slow. Give it time to freeze the underlay, but not so much time that the stuff in your cooler evaporates. I had a cardboard box, not a cooler. But this works too.

5.) Use the right tools. I thought a straight up hammer would work, but light impacts did nothing, and heavy blows would damage the car. So I got my air hammer, a chisel attachment, and went to town. This was the best strategy I could come up with.

Where do I find dry ice?

Well, the internet will have you believe that it's EVERYWHERE! Grocery stores, hardware stores, every welding supply shop, Walmart... pick a business! They sell dry ice!

Nope.

If you live in the country, like me, none of those places have it. None of them.

Just Google for a dry ice store and call around. I had to go pretty far from home to get it, but that just meant I could get it on my way home from work.

How much do I need and how much does it cost?

I used 15 pounds. That's a nice load of pellets in a 10 inch cube box. I would use 25 or more if I did it again, but 15 was enough.

Where I got it, it was $3.00 per pound if you bought 10 pounds or more. It is not expensive.

How much time did you save?

A lot. The colder it gets, the more brittle it gets. The air chisel gets under it and it just explodes in chunks. I did 90% of the underlay in 10 minutes. The other 10% took another hour or more. The other 10% was not well frozen due to slopes or a lack of coverage in general. Running the air chisel through that takes effort and feels like running through a smear of bubble gum.

I hope this was coherent and helpful! I'll edit it tomorrow if it's badly written. Happy chipping!

[Mike Tries]

I watched four Fast and the Furious films yesterday. I also installed door bars on my cage. I think I did my bends and copes at about the rate of one tube per film.

The Fast and the Furious franchise started off at the same time that the American car culture was rising to its peak. Car shows were popular, people went cruising on Friday nights, and yeah... some people raced. The original concept of the movie was based on a 1998 Vibe article titled "Racer X", by Ken Li, about illegal street racing. In fact, once Paul Walker and Vin Diesel were selected for their roles, director Gary Scott Thompson sent the pair out to witness actual street racing events to learn how things worked. But we're interested in legal racing here.

If you're going racing, you need to follow the rules. SCCA says you need side impact bars, and so I made some last night! The top bars were the first ones I made. They each had two bends, and I just went with full symmetry left and right. The bottoms were simple: just straight tubes with copes at the ends. I used cutoffs and leftovers to make the little vertical brace thingies. They're probably important or whatever, but I don't think they're required. The most important thing is that they look cool as heck. Just like the cars in Fast and the Furious.

The car scene in the late 1990s and 2000s was a mix of show and go. Cars had crazy paint jobs, big wings, body kits (Z3 fenders on literally every Civic... do you guys remember that?), and decals. Lots of decals. Some of them were fast. Very few were furious though. I'm not sure where that came from. I hope this Audi is fast enough. I know it's going to have lots of decals. Again, not furious. Enjoy the pictures!

[Mike Tries]

Did you guys know that John C. Reilly was in both Days of Thunder and its parody, Talladega Nights? I didn't know that until this weekend, when I watched Days of Thunder.

Days of Thunder was one of my favorite movies as a kid. While Top Gun made me want to be a fighter pilot (yeah, that didn't happen), Days of Thunder made me want to be a race car driver. The all-star cast, the behind-the-scenes peek at what it takes to compete in NASCAR, and the exciting story all made this movie great. Just getting to see a little bit about what it takes to build a race car made it worth the watch.

Of course, I needed to channel my inner Harry Hogge, played by Robert Duvall, to get this cage knocked out this weekend. And that I did. Almost. Kind of. I mean, is any drama all that exciting if there isn't a mad-dash at the end of it? That's where I am. I've got, basically, until early Monday to get this thing "done", or at least complete-enough to roll out onto my driveway and abandon for a couple of weeks. I think I can make it. I've got all the parts done--so I think I just need to weld the thing as much as I can, ratchet strap it tight and drop it, and then weld the top of it. And paint it. And install the rocker boxes. And cover up the sun roof.

OK, it's a lot. But I got a ton done just yesterday, and I think I made the hardest parts already. Just yesterday, I hammered the snot out of two formerly-flat-but-now-curved plates to mount to the firewall, mounted tubes to those, built a knee buster bar (the dash bar), braced the trunk floor for the rear main tubes, and made those tubes. I also made a roof diagonal bar thingy with a pair of 15 degree bends to pitch it upward a bit for extra headroom. I actually have plenty of headroom as it is, but more doesn't hurt. Oh, and those Days of Thunder door bars--I got the vertical supports tacked in place for those.

[Mike Tries]

Welding has begun! Some of those tubes are now permanently part of the car. I don't have any pictures at the moment, but I did watch Jake Gyllenhaal's Source Code while I was welding. If you're looking for a good sci-fi / quasi-time-travel thriller movie, put this one on your list--somewhere in the middle. Gyllenhaal was great, but the story was... well it wasn't The Matrix. Don't get me wrong, the story was interesting and novel, but it didn't get into character development enough. If it did, then I didn't notice.

Then again, it was 90 degrees in my garage and I was wearing a welding jacket and burning my legs with hot drippings from the welder. Perhaps I didn't catch 100% of the story. I would have liked to see the story continue after the point where it ended, though.

Has anyone seen my coffee? Where's my coffee? I know I left it here somewhere...

[Mike Tries]

Not much to say today. I did a lot of welding, and I made two gussets. I will likely need to make more, but this is a start. I need to get the car back on the ground and out of the garage so that I can be ready to use the garage again. Progress is about to slow, but I am pretty much there with it.

I did pick the color for the cage though.

All of them.

All the colors! One tube gets blue, another gets yellow, another gets red... It feels very VW.

[Mike Tries]

Driving a car without a drivers door is weird. But I was able to do that tonight! The work is by no means complete, but things are progressing, and I am super happy with the way things are going so far.

Also, I was able to ratchet strap the cage to pull it in as I wanted to, so I think it should drop as planned without any serious issues.

Also, dang those wheels are heavy! It's time for lighter wheels, I think.

[Gunnarrrrr]

Try apex wheels, the bmw autoX and track guys really like them. super light and only 3-400 a wheel


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[Mike Tries]

Ill take a look! Thanks!

[Mike Tries]

I'm back at it! I took off for a little over a week for some planned vacation. The name of the game this weekend: Super Troopers. And also gussets and rocker boxes or whatever.

The garage has been reconfigured because we need to get the cars in and out now. So, I will clear it out and reshimmy the A4 while I work on it during the weekends, but I want to be able to start it and move it back over so we can fit one of the other cars inside during the week. This makes it a little more challenging, but I also tend to keep the garage cleaner this way. Plus, I want my wife to have access to her garage spot.

Has anybody here ever seen Super Troopers? I think it came out in 2001 or 2002, so I was still a kid, but the movie holds relevant today. It was one of those witty cop comedies starring the Broken Lizard comedy guys. They also did the movie Beer Fest, a few years later, which I hold to be the better film, but Super Troopers was more widely-known (and easier to come by as it was on Hulu, and Beer Fest was not).

The movie follows the group of Vermont State Trooper as they patrol their small section of highway in Spurbury, Vermont. Their department is on the budgetary chopping block as the Governor of Vermont is out, I suppose campaigning for reelection, and is cutting state police funding in the process. The lead characters stumble upon a drug ring that involves the local police department, solve the crime, and get beaten up a few times in the process. Super Troopers is full of quotable one-liners and memorable scenes, especially scenes involving Officer Rodney Farva, played by Kevin Heffernan. In the end, the heroes end up getting the support they need, but in an unexpected way.

Just like how my roll cage got the support it needed, although in an expected way. I wanted to make some gussets to strengthen the link between the door bars and the front main hoop, so I cut some 8" slices of tubing, notched a few 45* cuts into them, and welded them on. They fit right where I wanted them, though I did have to cut away some of the dash support, including the bottom of the bracket that holds the fuse panel. The fuse panel will need to be relocated, because the tube will go right through where it needs to live.

Oh well. That's what zip ties are for.

My dad came over and helped me fabricate the end plates for the rocker boxes as well. This is the first time I've really used CAD (Cardboard Aided Design) to fabricate anything. Gee whiz is that ever a good way to do things! The most challenging part was the front driver's side. The forward wall has to come down along the frame rail and deal with curves in two dimensions, despite being completely flat itself. Finally got it though. I'm not sure exactly how I'm going to weld that thing in there later on, but that's a future-Mike Tries problem. We'll remove the rocker boxes, one at a time, and TIG weld them together next weekend. Then we can pinch the cage and drop it to the floor, finish welding the cage, paint it, and raise it. There will be a few such drops and lifts as I weld and paint the main part of the cage, then install the rear stays, drop it again, weld those, and lift it one last time. I have a giant clamp that is wider than the car, plus a bunch of ratchet straps--this should make the job relatively.... possible.

I have to say that the rocker box part was my biggest worry--that it would be hard to make these little metal plates--but we had a good time yesterday and it worked out just fine!

[Mike Tries]

Busy day today! My dad came over and we watched Guardians of the Galaxy. What an incredible movie. The origin story of Star Lord.

I'm going to keep this update short because I'm lying on the floor and I'm becoming a bit uncomfortable.

Today we welded the absolute snot out of the rocker boxes, then we ratchet strapped the cage together, dropping it to the floor. I then ratchet strapped it to the trunk, tilting it backwards, allowing great access to the tubes I needed access to. The flap on the door bar is just a place to clamp the ground clamp to because it slips off of the tubes.

Enjoy! (I'm not actually sure how many of you are interested in all this. I hope you find it interesting!)

[Mike Tries]

I do see a little gap there on one of the welds. Already marked it for completion tomorrow. That's my biggest concern, actually... that I'll miss a weld and realize it after the thing is impossible to get back to.

[Mike Tries]

Paint is going on! I'm not a very good painter, so it's going to look passable at best. At least it'll be interesting! It's going to be blue.

And red.

And white.

And yellow.

And magenta.

[Danisson]

Looks interesting by now :) Waiting to see it finished !

[Mike Tries]

Oh, by the way, just because the paint is starting to on, it doesn't mean the cage is finished. I need to paint the top of it while it's dropped, or else that'll never happen. Once I have the upper cross bar and windshield bar coated, I can finish installing the other components, like the rear main bars, a cross brace for those, the dash bar, and a host of bits for the main hoop that I removed so that I could bend the thing. It's really hard to think this many steps out, because it's a 3D problem, but I think I have to shove it up onto the rocker boxes again, weld what I can for the rear main bars to the main hoop, then drop it again to weld the tops of those. Then I need to evaluate whether I can leave it up to weld the dash bar. If so, then I can weld in the rocker boxes, the front legs to the firewall... it's a weird problem to work through, and there's no instruction manual for it. It's been a super-fun process, though, and I'm glad I'm doing it. Also... I'm glad I'm doing it to a wagon--I think that makes things a little easier.

[Mike Tries]

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa... merica

[Mike Tries]

Remember, boys, 20 feet at 120 mph! (I'm not a very good painter.)

[Gunnarrrrr]

wow that looks terrible, and I love it! keep up the good work


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[Mike Tries]

wow that looks terrible, and I love it! keep up the good work


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Yeah! I painted some of it with a paper towel!

[Danisson]

Looks good !

[Mike Tries]

Did I have the whatever-they-ares on there yesterday when I made my last post? The forward tubes?

No? OK, cool. Then I have an update. Why don't you pull up a chair and sit down for a bit. I'm going to sit all backwards-like on my chair and lean on the back of it. Just a style thing.

These last steps are really hard. It is hard to think about the next steps when I am not there staring at it and listening to Disturbed. It's hard to keep it all in my mind's eye. So, planning it while I am doing the dishes is not in the cards... I don't get to show up to start on it with a head full of ideas. My worry was that the rear tubes would only be weldable from the top if the cage was dropped. But, I can't drop it much if the front tubes are welded on. But... if I do the rear legs first, there is no way to tilt the cage back to get to the forward tubes.

Fortunately, dear reader, we thought about that in early design (which I forgot about). And I have a station wagon! The rear mains come down at a nice 45 degree angle, and I have a cavernous cabin to work inside. So, no, the rear mains aren't going to be a problem at all, and I can weld them with the cage in place.

Do you listen to music? The Sound of Silence is a great song, but I only like the Disturbed version. It got me back into rock and metal again after being kind of out of that for 5 years or so. They're such a good band!

The cage? Oh. Yeah.

I got the cage back up on the rockers and released the ratchets to get the front mains tacked in place. Then I ratched the whole thing in again and dropped it. Rear rocker boxes came out. With the cage once again able to be moved about, and with the rear rocker boxes out, I dropped it again and ratcheted it towards the trunk again to tilt it up at the front. That allowed me to fully weld the front legs in.

It ALSO allowed me to gap weld the absolute snot of the front rocker boxes. Unless you're an SCCA scrutineer. In that case, I welded absolute perfection as there were no gaps between the boxes and the rockers. They're 75% in. Need to run a seam up the front of each box. Pain in the tookus that is, but it is possible.

Uh, photos. Here ya go! Not many of them tonight.



Note that the cage is tilted way back in this picture. When it sits flat, the front pad jams up nicely to the firewall.

[Mike Tries]

I got in there yesterday for a bit and welded the rest of the driver's side front rocker box. That was the hardest thing I've ever welded so far. It was the front vertical seam, so I had to be in the footwell to see it. But I was wearing a welding helmet and a respirator (seriously, if you can't identify what the smoke is made out of, you probably shouldn't breathe it in), so jamming my head in there was a challenge. Imagine--I've got the steering column with the wheel attached to it still (because I like to party), and I've got almost the entire harness terminating right there, so I had it all bungeed up and out of the way as much as possible, and then I just stuffed my head in there like an ostrich stuffs its head in the sand, and went to town. The car only caught fire twice, and they were little fires that I could blow out with a puff of Argon/CO2 mix from the welder.

Is it weird that I let one of the fires burn for a few seconds just to watch it?

Next up: THE OTHER FRONT ROCKER BOX!

That one was significantly easier. I got some foam pads and laid them on the floor. Then I got everything situated where it needed to be for easy reach. Torch was within reach, the.... what's it called... wire thingy? The hose? The black bit that connects the torch to the welder that the gas and wire pass through... got that in place and comfortable. Respirator on. Gloves on. Helmet on. Into the footwell!

Then, I promptly ran out of gas.

Damn it.

So, next time on Mike Tries Roll Cages, I'll finish that Rocker Box. I did get a majority of the front seam done--I just need to button it all up and be done with it. Then, I guess the following in this order:

1.) Weld in rear rocker boxes.

2.) Weld in knee buster/dash bar.

3.) Weld (maybe just tack for now until I'm sure) the plates on the forward tubes (seen in 11 August's posts) to the firewall, thus sealing the fate of the cage as part of the Audi forever.

4.) Weld in the bits to the main hoop that are made up but not installed yet (left and right harness bars, lower diagonal bit).

5.) Weld the rear main tubes to the main hoop.

6.) Weld those same main tubes to the chassis plates in the trunk.

7.) Weld the four remaining tubes to their rocker boxes.

8.) Get into extra-curriculars with some bonus tubes. Maybe a diagonal down the rear main tubes. Maybe a brace from the lower part of the main hoop to somewhere near the bottom of the rear main tubes. Stuff like that.

9.) TACO GUSSETS!

10.) Paint the rest of the cage.

11.) Return everybody's tools to them before I start getting anxiety about it.

It's getting close. One solid weekend's worth of work, and I'll bet putting parts back on it. Not many parts, mind you, but like the doors and the dash pad, and the seat. The window net is ready to go on, too, so I'll do that when it makes sense to do it. Probably after the cage is solidly-installed to the car.

[Mike Tries]

I burned the rear rocker boxes in finally. That was way more frustrating and challenging than it ought to have been. The sheet metal on the rockers kept blowing through no matter how low the power went. I finally found a technique that allowed me to run a bead at a super low setting along the rocker with good penetration into the body. I would then run a few more passes to build up some gloopy weld beads. Then... MAXIMUM POWER! I'd melt it all together once it was built up.

Also, did you know you can't weld to seam sealer? Yeah. There is a lot of seam sealer in the back of the rocker area. It wasn't an issue on the front. I would have a good bead going, then I'd run over a crack that had sealer behind it and POOF!, my weld puddle was gone. Getting rid of that is just a matter of time and elbow grease. And fire. Scrape it with a screw driver of you have to. Then burn the remainder out with a torch.

Also, there is a lot of seam sealer UNDER the car. And that stuff loves to catch fire. So that's alarming. But that's why you do this stuff with a buddy! In this case, my dad came over. He was on fire duty. We jacked up the car for better access for him. He also used my welding spoon which I made by cutting a piece of Copper pipe to length and beating the absolute piss out of it with a hammer. Slice one of these pipes halfway through, about 6 inches from the end, and flatten it. My dad said he could shape my molten weld puddles from underneath! Plus, the copper soaks away some of the heat making it less likely that you'll melt through.

These things look bad but there are a couple layers involved and they are as solid as I can make them.

[Mike Tries]

The cage is officially part of the car! I got the front pads welded to the firewall. Then I put the knee buster bar in after shortening it a bit (welding things make them change shape more than you might think!). I was able to even get the front passenger leg attached to the rocker.

I also took a long look at the wiring. I really want to make sure it isn't going to be in the way, or that it isn't going to get stuck on the WRONG SIDE of a tube. I removed the connectors from one of the connectory-holdery-thingies, and left them unplugged. I'll just go ahead and discard that plastic chunk, click everything back together later on (one at a time so I can figure out what it all does), and zip tie it in place.

[Gunnarrrrr]

all of this exposed wiring should make it way easier to retrofit the oem bluetooth rnse hands free module and auto dimming power folding mirrors just saying


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[Mike Tries]

I mean... you're not wrong. Lol

[Mike Tries]

Lower diagonal is burned in. So are both front legs and the driver side main hoop leg! Next up is the harness bar, then rear mains!