• From: NWI
  • Registered: 2018-02-28
  • Posts: 16

Topic: Roll Cage Relocation Best Method??

Hello Lemons World.

Lets say you have a car with a well built, heavy duty custom rollcage.  Thicker than your mom, and what tech suggests the car to have. You want to move that roll cage from one car to an identical, just less rusty car.

Whats the best way to do that while best maintaining the structural integrity of both the vehicle and cage.  I'm guessing cut the car off around the cage, then cut/weld the roof of the new car to make clearance? 

Who else has experience doing this the "right" way?  Wanting to save the production cost/time costs of doing the cage if we can help it. 

It's our Eagle Talon.  After Gingerman this weekend she's pretty close to done hmm

1992 Eagle Talon ES(i)
  • From: SF BayArea/Land of Enchantment
  • Registered: 2012-01-22
  • Posts: 903

Re: Roll Cage Relocation Best Method??

Whatever you do,however you do it.......run it by John Pagel first........Any advice,tips,tricks,etc. that you recieve here don't mean shit if the finished product does not pass tech...and Pagel's word is the only one that matters .......pagel@24hoursoflemons.com

That being said...good luck....we're all counting on you....

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  • From: NWI
  • Registered: 2018-02-28
  • Posts: 16

Re: Roll Cage Relocation Best Method??

BigBird wrote:

Whatever you do,however you do it.......run it by John Pagel first........Any advice,tips,tricks,etc. that you recieve here don't mean shit if the finished product does not pass tech...and Pagel's word is the only one that matters .......pagel@24hoursoflemons.com

That being said...good luck....we're all counting on you....

Oh absolutely it'll go through the right channels if we actually decide to go through with a cage move, I guess I'm just looking for some inspiration I might not otherwise find before I go to John with zero ideas and waste his time.

1992 Eagle Talon ES(i)
  • Spank
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  • From: Escondido, CA
  • Registered: 2009-06-10
  • Posts: 5,863

Re: Roll Cage Relocation Best Method??

I believe I've seen mention of this method several times in the early days of Speedycop and the Gang of Outlaws. For certain he/they used this method in their rent-a-racer Impala wagon.

Cage Swaps always sound interesting in theory. But not really sure how well they actually go in practice. I guess if you are going from same car model to same car model, you have a better chance of success. I'm by far no expert or even a pro, but I pride myself on my cages being about as tight up against the inside of a car as I can weld, and I have to spend a lot of time on "order of operations" to make sure I can get some of the welds in before stuffing the joint into an inaccessible area. Thinking about that, I wonder how low I would actually have to cut the B and C pillars on the car in order to be able to get the cage out in one piece on some of them.

I would suggest rather than slowly cutting the car off the cage that you want to reuse, that you try to mimic what you want to try to do on the re-install car: as few cuts as you can to remove the cage. I don't particularly like the idea of cutting the cage apart and then re-notching the tube ends and rewelding the to their connections because of the area getting double heated. I'm no engineer, though, so maybe that's not a problem...

When I pre-built the cages for an effort to "build a car at the track", I did the hoop, diagonal and harness bar as a single welded unit and then the halo and A-pillar bars and dash bar as another single unit and then put the two pieces in through the door opening and scissored them up and then just had to weld the joints of the roof halo attachments to the main hoop tops. Then throw in the door bars and slide the spreader plates beneath and then weld it all down.  Maybe you can do something similar if you have to cut the cage into 2 major pieces.

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  • From: Elverson, PA
  • Registered: 2017-08-15
  • Posts: 1,129

Re: Roll Cage Relocation Best Method??

plinth boxes may help

  • Troy
  • Troy
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  • From: Houston, TX
  • Registered: 2009-04-30
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Re: Roll Cage Relocation Best Method??

I think TARP recycled their cage from one E36 to another but both were convertibles so the roof wasn't an issue.

Troy

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  • From: Charleston
  • Registered: 2010-08-10
  • Posts: 1,030

Re: Roll Cage Relocation Best Method??

I've done two cars, with two different methods.  Biggest issue is the windshield.  Even with the roof cut off, most cages won't slip in behind the windshield.  Odds are high that a well fit cage won't clear all the floor bits enough to make it under the windshield.

Years ago, we moved a cage from one Honda Civic to another.  Had to cut the cage in half at the main hoop to fit it in.  We cut the roof on the new(ish) car at the C and B pillars and peeled the roof back like a sardine can.  We cut all the forward tubes at the main hoop as close to the main hoop as possible.  The person running the saw had to be very careful, slow and precise.  And single nick in the main hoop would mean just building a new cage.  Ground down the remaining tube stumps and weld from the hoop - again, very, very carefully.  Left just a bit of the old weld in place - mostly to prove we didn't grind into the main hoop tubes at all.  Then we notched all the forward tubes to the main hoop - ended up losing less than an inch total.  Put the two parts of the cage in the car, through the opened roof, tacked it all together and welded it all up and welded the roof back down.  Overall, a very painful process and I would never do it again.

I also helped Kyle move a Kia roll cage from one car to another identical car.  In that case, he complete cut the roof AND windshield off.  That one was easier - the cage was untouched.  Just had to weld the spreader plates into the new car.  Granted, it was a pain to the get the windshield angles 100% correct when those were welded back.  In that case Kyle needed to replace the windshield anyhow, so it made the decision to cut really easy.

The second method was far better.

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  • Mr.Yuck
  • Mr.Yuck
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  • Registered: 2013-12-09
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Re: Roll Cage Relocation Best Method??

GTPquickRB wrote:

Hello Lemons World.

Lets say you have a car with a well built, heavy duty custom rollcage.  Thicker than your mom, and what tech suggests the car to have. You want to move that roll cage from one car to an identical, just less rusty car.

Whats the best way to do that while best maintaining the structural integrity of both the vehicle and cage.  I'm guessing cut the car off around the cage, then cut/weld the roof of the new car to make clearance? 

Who else has experience doing this the "right" way?  Wanting to save the production cost/time costs of doing the cage if we can help it. 

It's our Eagle Talon.  After Gingerman this weekend she's pretty close to done hmm

We arecked our 84 trans am, the new build is an 88. We cut the old car up and cut the cage out. The plan is to cut the roof of the 88, re-weld the cage, the re-weld the roof back on.

"get up and get your grandma outta here"