I tried mounting the roll bars today just to get them out of the boxes (and because they look cool!) but I ran into some problems. The primary issue is the the chrome plating on the hoop stud seems to be thick enough to cause an interference with the rear leg going on. I was unable to slide the rear leg onto the hoop stud at all...couldn't even get it started.

Some folks on the Factory Five Builder Facebook page suggested to grind the internal diameter of the leg pipe using a bore hone. I went to AutoZone and bought one, adjusted the tension spring almost all the way up, and went to work. I ground it for about 10 minutes, checking the ID along the way, and unfortunately after almost 10 minutes the ID only opened up about .002" and that's it. The grinding stones on the bore hone tool were just about toast (with the dust everywhere to prove it). So I'm thinking what the hell does it take to open these holes up?


I then tried a regular old sanding drum mounted to the drill. Again, I pretty much wore the sand paper down to nothing (about 5-10 minutes of grinding away).


After this, I was able to install the rear leg onto the stud, but just barely. I had to twist it and it still was extremely difficult. Next I tried mounting the bars to the frame. I was worried about binding since it was still difficult to assemble off the frame, so I added some chassis grease to each part (that's what you see in the picture below). Due to the very slight angle different between the hoop leg and the rear leg, when I try to slide the rear leg up onto the stud, this very tiny angle difference causes the legs to bind up. I got it about 1/4" from all the way home (i.e. flush to the top of the hoop leg) before giving up. I didn't snap a picture of that. I then had one hell of a time getting the rear leg to slide back down and off the hoop stud to take the whole thing apart.


So - what's the trick to getting this to fit? Do I just need to keep grinding that internal diameter on the rear leg? That seems to me to be the solution....to open up enough clearance to allow just a little bit of slip between the pipes and allow a little bit of angular tolerance. I figure .010-.020" of clearance might just be enough. The problem is how to achieve it? Is there a better way to grind away the internal diameter? I don't want to keep buying $20 bore hones...