Door bar installations

[rutthenut]

Roger asked me for photo's of my door bar installation, so I thought I may as well share the pictures in case anyone else is interested (now that I have a digital camera).

These pictures are of the welded-in door bars on my far-from-completed racer, which has a few other changes from a standard Hawk (lift-off door hinges, relocated fuel tank, extra bracing around the footwell, carbon/kevlar panel work, group 4 dash, lightened chassis and plenty of other tweaks).

My 'road car' has removeable door bars, although I've never taken them out since fitting them!

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Another showing the front mounting point of the near-side door bar.

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Then a [pretty poor] shot of the near-side door bar seen from the side

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Looking across from the near-side to the drivers door bar, showing the angle and height overall

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Final photo showing another view of the front mounting point on my car.

[rutthenut]

Just a few comments regarding the door bars.

Main point to consider is that the MSA 'Blue Book' does specify that the bar must be no higher than one third of the way up the door aperture.

It must also tie in to the existing roll cage/spaceframe chassis with effective mounts. The rear mounting on mine links in to the door strike support bar/mount as well as the main chassis section - although you cannot really see that in my snaps.

The front point should be as high as possible, without making it impossible to get in and out of the car. With the door aperture of the Strat, that doesn't give much scope.

If you do fit these bars to a road car, you will also have to remove the standard door pockets as they will foul the bars.
Gerry is making up some alternative panels that will fit into the door inners and provide an almost flat side, so providing for some form of door pocket storage (which I do miss on my car). You can always make something up yourself, but when these are done they will fit properly, so you might want them. The storage space is useful even on a race car, for gloves or body pins, paperwork. etc during scrutineering. Well, it would be useful if I had it!

Any comments or queries, do post away.

If anyone wants shots of the removable door bars on my current car, let me know and I'll see what I can do.

[chris.richard]

Photos of your removable door bars would be useful, thank you - a chance to play with your new camera!

[GMC]

John, You car look very very prepared, I like it. Could you please show me how / where you put the saftey belt fixing eyes behind the seat for the four point harness, or are you using six point for this years regs ? As I intend to fit a four point harness this weekend.

[rutthenut]

As requested, a few pictures of the door bars on my current car. The bolts used are high tensile M12 jobs, which is more than the regs require. What you cannot see in any of the pictures is the additional mounting plate and bracing behind the ally bulhead. I'm not about to remove fuel tanks to show how that goes together, but if you know the Hawk chassis you can probably see how a couple of locations can be tied together in an effective manner.

First, a view of the rear mounting point of the bar.

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Then, looking across the car at the passenger side, the lower front mounting point.

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An interior shot that shows the angle and height of the door bar

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And an exterior show that should also show height and angle.

[rutthenut]

Originally posted by GMC
Could you please show me how / where you put the saftey belt fixing eyes behind the seat for the four point harness, or are you using six point for this years regs ? As I intend to fit a four point harness this weekend.

Maybe a bit late for your weekend task, but my car has a six point harness on the drivers side and a four point for the passenger (which is only for road use, not competition).

The Hawk/Transformer chassis includes mounts in the upper rear chassis rail, above the bulkhead, to allow eye bolts to be fitted (or for belts to be bolted directly in place).

For the lower rear points, the seat belts mounting eyes in the side chassis rails are acceptable. I did find that their position was not ideal in my car, as I have a slightly lowered floor section and the seat is mounted back as far as it will go. This can result in the belt adjusters being very close to the hole in the side of the seat, which is not where they really should be.

The best place for the lower rear mounting points is basically as low and as far back as you can get them, without causing further problems in not being able to attach the snap hooks the the eye bolt.

If you use bolt-in type harnesses, rather than snap-hook fittings, then the adjuster ends up nearer to the mounting point and hence is less likely to snag on the side of the seat.

For the six-point harness, additional mounting points are needed for the crutch strap. Their location is determined by the hole in the seat, so that the strap does not pull against the edge of the seat when in use.

For my existing car, I had some work done to add some eye bolts that mount in the horizontal plane under the seat, in a fore-and-aft direction coming from the small cross-member in that area of the floor. This necessitated some extra ally panel work to cover these mounting points with a form of 'box' from below. Again, the adjusters prove to be somewhat awkward in this fitting, as my seat is almost on the floor and there is no real strap run to work with.

Hence on my new car I am using a different style of mounting for the crutch straps, although still in a similar position. Looking through the MSA 'Blue Book' you will see that a form of 'sandwich plate' can be used as a harness mounting, with the strap going through an 'S' shape in some way (do you want a picture of that diagram at all?). This mechanism removes the need for eye bolts and snap-hooks, so there is then room for the adjuster to work without finding it in close proximity to my crown jewels :eek:

Hope that answers your questions somewhat. Some of this was also described in the SRC Yahoo Group if you care to look back through the messages in that forum (which appears to have gone silent now that this one is in full swing - without annoying popup adverts - Thanks for that David).

[chris.richard]

John, who manufactured yours, and do you still have the drawings?

Chris

[rutthenut]

I had these door-bars made up via Gerry, who used Andy (at Street Steel) and there are no drawings for these.

My newer chassis has fixed-in door bars, rather than removable versions, and these were also made by Gerry/Andy.

So, sorry can't help much on that front.

Roger Donnan has probably made up some door bars for his car, so maybe he can provide the information you would want?

[Stratos]

Demon Tweeks do them with fixings for about £35. That is where I got mine from.

You'll probably also find you can buy them direct from Safety Devices, Rollcage, Custom Cages, or one of the other manufacturers.

I have contact details for all of these companies if you need them.