The GCR and You

[Speed Raycer]

On the roll cages section, I'd also add that all welds must be 360 degrees around the tube and no grinding of any welds allowed. Both of those are often overlooked.

A few weeks ago, I teched an SCCA logbooked ITB car for NASA and the welds that were there were ground down and bondo'd over.

[GTIspirit]

On the roll cages section, I'd also add that all welds must be 360 degrees around the tube and no grinding of any welds allowed. Both of those are often overlooked.

I've heard that the tech inspectors pay specific attention to this. I looked for this requirement in the 2009 GCR, but could not find it in the rollcage section that I thought pertains to IT cars.

IT cars follow section 9.4 Roll Cages for GT and Production Based Cars, and not section 9.4.5 Roll Cages for Formula Cars and Sports Racers, right? Under section 9.4 I can't find this requirement. But under section 9.4.5 I find the following:
9.4.5.E.6.

...Welds shall be continuous around the entire tubular structure.

The reason I was looking is because as everyone is well aware, it is extremely difficult to weld all the way around certain joints, and I wanted to know if there was an allowance where gussets might preclude full circumferential welding. So where exactly is this requirement that sometimes catches some people?

[GKR_17]

On the roll cages section, I'd also add that all welds must be 360 degrees around the tube and no grinding of any welds allowed. Both of those are often overlooked.

That would be good practice, but where is it required in the rules?

See 9.4.G.4:

It is recommended that all joints of the roll cage be welded. All welding must include full penetration, no cold lap, no surface porosity, no crater porosity, no cracks, no whiskers, and so forth. Alloy steel must be normalized after welding. It is recom-mended that a certified AWS D1.1 welder do all welding.

[Speed Raycer]

9.4.5.E.6. (I think... I suck at following that BS) I'll have to dig for the AWS code, but can guarantee that it's against the code to grind a weld, but for now, this'll have to do:

6. Welding shall conform to American Welding Society D1.1:2002, Structural Welding Code, Steel Chapter 10, Tubular Structures. Whenever D1.1 refers to "the Engineer" this shall be inter-preted to be the owner of the vehicle. Welds shall be contin-uous around the entire tubular structure. All welds shall be visually inspected and shall be acceptable if the following conditions are satisfied: a. The weld shall have no cracks. b. Thorough fusion shall exist between weld metal and base metal. c. All craters shall be filled to the cross section of the weld. d. Undercut shall be no more than 0.01 inch deep.

[erlrich]

Scott, the other guys were pointing out that the section you quoted is under the rules for formula & sport racers cars. The rules for production and GT cars don't include that same stipulation. It looks like maybe it got lost when the new roll cage rules were written, as the stipulation IS included under "Basic Design Considerations" in the "Appendix G - 2007 Roll Cage Rules" section.

[Speed Raycer]

Thanks Earl. I knew I hadn't dreamt it up My version of Acrobat is corrupt so I was happy to be able to find what I did.

Seriously, they need to fix what they tried to fix. They left out some important stuff.