Mission roll cage accomplished!

Floor painted with white smoothrite - it certainly made a difference and makes the car look so much better. Having taken out all the carpets and trim, along with lots of sound deadening three were lots of different colours on the floor pan - much better now it's all one!









Getting the dashboard in wasn't too bad actually as it's much easier when there's less of it and aesthetics don't matter so much.

Getting the wiring sorted took much longer than expected though and over an hour was wasted trying to work out why the driving lamps now wouldn't work. The reason for this was a dodgy connection which, I am pleased to say, was a BL connection and not a Randle one!





More rally gear being located here - the footrest which has gone back where it was for now but will have to be moved to suit Sarah when time allows.

Then there's the hand-held fire extinguisher which is now actually located further forward than shown as it would otherwise have been tucked under the navigator's seat!





Finally - mission accomplished with the roll cage fully in place although there's a fair bit of tidying and fettling to be done yet.

No fannying about!

Another 4 hours on this - will it never end?

I am really getting excited now though as this rallying lark is getting to feel very real - first event should be in April so that means I have to crack on and get the car log booked etc with the MSA. This is no time for fannying about!

This is where Bryce and I started today - the roll cage pretty much in and tack welded.

Here you can see the door bar in place and I wanted to check how "easy" it was to get in and out with this in place. So, we lifted in one of the seats and I gave it a go - all OK so if I can do it then Sarah, being a slip of a thing will have no problems. (Flattery always helps I find!). Actually. to get the door to shut I had to remove the arm rest/door pull! A bit more weight saved then.

Here's a picture of the front leg mounting. TR7 competiton drivers will know about the dreaded "head banging" syndrome which is usually not helped by the fitting of other makes of cages. In those the front legs "kink in" to mount on the floor whereas ours is on top of the sill.

There should be two benefits to this - with the other makes the leg intrudes into the floor pan right in front of the accelerator pedal and so the driver has to hook their foot around it - this won't happen here.

The other effect is that the top of the bar as it goes along the roof line drops - I may not be explaining it very well but it means that it intrudes into the door opening at the top and comes close to the occupant's head.

This arrangement has helped us get the bar as high as possible - it shouldn't be an issue for Sarah as we have mounted her seat lower than mine anyway and she's about 4" shorter. It's still not great for me but anyone over my height of 5'8" would have more of an issue needing more radical work on the floor and seat mountings.

Next, here's the cross tube which links the front legs above the windscreen.Still tack welded in place in this shot.


We still had to get the offside door bar in place too which took some doing - it just didn't want to know.


Once we had done that tho, like all the other sections the brackets also needed to be tack welded in place so that we are sure (ahemm!) that it all lines up when it goes back in.


Following that it all had to come out again so that all the tubes and brackets could be fully wekded up.


Here's the cross tube, both door bars and one of the front leags all on the floor of the workshop ready for welding.


In addition all the mounting plates on the floor of the car and the sills needed welding fully up.

While Bryce was welding I was removing yet more sound deadening material.

Towards the end of the day all the pipework was primed and painted again.

Next week it's refitting the dashboard and getting the roll cage in.

I'll also be looking at fitting the main extinguisher in a suitable place - on the transmission tunnel between the seats wherre the armrest was comes to mind.