Hey Y'All,

I was dreading this for a while, but decided it was time to tackle the rollbar drilling job

I emulated other Builder's who had mounted a simple, small, square section of plywood to my drill press base. It was a "hobby" piece from Lowes...Great idea! It was flat and true enough and had a little "give" so I didn't scratch the rollbar chrome. It was just large enough to support the rollbar, too... I used a combination of clamps and straight edges to hold down the rollbar, and my secret weapon was a tube or round stock "center finder" for use in the drillpress. I decided to keep the axis perpendicular to the hoop as it was clamped flat. There was a time when I had considered offseting the angle a little for the outer hoop tube, but decided against it because I couldn't clamp the rollbar effectively unless it was flat( more on that later) Here's the setup rollbar drillpress setup.jpg

Success for both hoops (centered and true)! Next, I wanted to fasten the back tube to the hoop, so I used a cheapo Harbor Freight drillpress vise, and drilled away with the same technique as before. Then I REALLY wanted to tap in one continuous process all the way thru the tubing, but I didn't have the right tap and settled on tapping from both directions (top/bottom). Anyway 5/16" coarse thread and some SS button heads and this is the result
rollbar frankenstein button head bolts.jpg rollbar frankenstein button head bolts2.jpg
I'm not sure about the washers, but that Driver's side really had flaking chrome The Passenger-side rollbar chrome wasn't flaky -- maybe because it isn't ordered as often and FFR chooses another chrome vendor? Something to ponder...

Next, I had to use a normal 5/16" twist bit, several step-bits and a 90deg angle attachment...and lots of concentration later, I had round holes thru all the tubes and mounting bosses -- no "wallered" holes!! Woo-hoo The "outboard" hoop bosses and the back tube bosses were the most challenging -- just not enough room. Here's a couple of pictures of the back tube holes drilled and fastened rollbar back tube fastening hole drilled.jpg rollbar all holes drilled into frame bosses.jpg

I'm glad this job is done and now I can get back to the radiator lower mount...something not as stressful!

Until next time,
Happy Building!

Craig C