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Hi everyone

My 710K is about to get some welding and fabrication work.

I want to get some front impact protection going, essentially a tube above the front bumper wrapping around the front vertical body edges. Maybe two vertical pipes for strength somewhere. Two questions about that please:

• Ideas for tubing, external diameter and tube wall thickness, what steel?
  
  Elsewhere on this forum I've seen advice to mount this on the body, not the bumper. But what's that about please, surely its better to mount it (bolt or weld) it onto the bumper rather than sheet steel bodywork?

I may as well get something to protect the petrol tank, side impact and rocks off-roading, I guess the same tube, run some kind of standoff back to the central chassis tube perhaps.

• What kind of sheet metal underneath it (material, thickness) please?

Thanks !

Andre would be a good person to discuss this with but no clue where you live (NA, europe, ?) so hard point to a possible resource close to you.
Andre has built all of what your asking for and has standard protection framework for gas tank and battery box areas.

Hi TechMOGogy,

I live in the UK, London to be precise, and I'm thinking of building these things with my fabricator precisely because I don't see any commercially available bits in the UK, and to some extent cost, my fabricator turns out good work at reasonable cost.

I'm deducing that would be Andre Swanson at Fat Fabrications, thanks for the suggestion, if nothing turns up in this thread I'll try a direct approach and ask him for some advice.

Mark

Mark

get in touch with Gregory at Shropshire Gunbus.
http://www.shropshiregunbus.co.uk/
He is your man in the UK for such a job.

Thanks Albert ^^^^^

So I found this from a specialist supplier of roll cages and bent tube:

If you intend to race your vehicle then the hoops must comply to the Motor Sport Association (MSA) and Fédération Internationale de l Automobile (FIA).

These rules stipulate that you must use either 44.45mm OD x 2.64mm or 50.8mm OD x 2.03mm CDS (Cold Drawn Seamless) Steel as a minimum for roll cages.

http://www.tube-bender.co.uk/hoops.html

Elsewhere I'm looking at bull bar specs with 2.5mm wall tubing and 50mm outside diameter tube.