Roll cage bad bend?

[moe_1200]

This could be a dumb question but on the front down tubes on my roll cage there is a crimp where they were bent to go from the a-pillars to behind the dash. In the GCR it states that you cannot have any crimping on the main hoop but i'm not sure about these front down tubes. It doesn't look too safe to me so i'm assuming its no good but if I could get away without having to completely change the down tubes that would be great. It's a halo design cage if that matters any.

Also another question I'm having is about my turn signal/running lights. According to the regs any lights mounted on or below the bumper shall be removed. The car is a 93 Ford Probe and the turn signals are mounted at bumper level recessed in about an inch. Do I need to remove these or can I leave them since they are recessed into the bumper?

[Streetwise guy]

I sure don't like it. It appears the bend wasn't a tight enough radius, so he "finessed" it with a porto-power.If you just paid somebody a bunch of cash to install the cage, I would go back and bitch until he redid the downtubes. If its a car you have bought, cage done already, it can probably be repaired with a supplemental tube to be as strong as it needs to be. The problem then is passing tech, since any repair/modification that falls into either a gray area or in a plain old black area is likely to be failed.

[cjb25hs]

That is super scary:eek: Fix It, the down tube needs to be replaced.

[rsportvolvo]

Not good! Replace as previously stated!

Additionally would you be willing to inform the group as to who did your cage work or who built the cage originally? It might save someone's neck!

[Spinnetti]

Few other comments...

I have side markers in the fender but not far from how the Probe lights are. If you tape them up, I doubt anybody will give you any problem, and if they do, its easy enough to pop them out.

The cage is definitely no good for several reasons. The crimp will probably kill you in a roll over and I can't imagine it passing tech. Recently I've seen a few good wrecks at the track which make me feel a whole lot less safe with IT cages, including a fairly minor hit where a tube sheared clean off.

Last bit is that in your picture, the left tube is welded to the A pillar. If this is an IT car, the cage has to be stand alone, and only contact the body at a maximum of 8 points - the 4 main ones, 2 rear stays and to footwell intrusion bars... (stupid rule IMO, but thats the way it is) Looks like there's some work to do there.

[John Herman]

One potential way to fix this, short of cutting the tube completely out and redoing it, would be to add a large "taco" gusset across the corner. But it's hard to see how much room you have with that bolted-in bracket there. In addition to the gussest, you could add a triangulating tube to go from the downtube to the door bar.