Skoda Rally Blog

So, I had the go-ahead from Custom Cages to start welding, so I thought I’d better crack on with it. Spent 2 full, long days this week doing the cage. At the beginning of the week, the main tubes were cut to size and profiled, but the mounting plates weren’t placed or anything like that. Really this was only 4 tubes, and they were gaffa taped in place. This wouldn’t pass scrutineering, BTW.

So, out came the tubes, cut them all down for the new plates which have to go under them, which was remarkably straightforward.

This was done on all 4, and then the cage re-assambled on them, and welded together where possible. By this time, I’d realised the screen needed to come out, which I managed to do without breaking it, for a change.

Then the cage assembly needed to be dropped down to allow it to be welded fully – one of the biggest problems with weld-in cages is that people don’t bother to weld the tubes all the way round, which is, frankly, mental. You don’t want to ever use a rollcage, but when you do need it, it needs to be 100%! To drop the cage down you have two options – either drill holes in the sills, or ratchet-strap the front and rear legs to reduce the width and drop the whole lot down by 3″ or so. This was duly done, and then the whole lot fully welded, and then the roof diagonal fitted.

That lot above took a full day to do. Seriously. It might look like an hour’s work, but I was making sure everything was 100%, and just tailoring the roof diagonal tube took about 90 minutes of grind, check, grind, check….

Next day it was time to put the cage on the mounting plates, so the plates had to be welded in place, which went very well – it’s amazing how nicely things can go if you prepare everything properly!

Once they were all welded in, the cage was raised up, and then the ratchet straps released….. which revealed a problem. I had been immensely careful trimming the tubes so everything would fit precisely. I was a little worried that one of the rear legs was about 5mm out of line. Custom cages say in their instructions that “it may be extremely difficult” to get the cage back on the feet. And they weren’t wrong! The legs had all moved due to heat distortion – not a huge amount, but being as strong as it was, I had to make up a tool to expand the legs – made from a piece of tube with a large thread in the middle that could expand the legs precisely. This took an hour or so to make, but there you go. I could then start welding the cage to the car, starting with the front right leg, then front left, and then lining up the rear legs and welding them. To give some idea of how far out it was, here’s the rear right leg before the tube was positioned and welded.

The leg should be in the middle of the plate – the “expander” came in handy again, and everything is millimetre perfect. Splendid.

Next up, the door bars. These are an X-shape, made of one long tube running from upper rear to lower front, and then a “broken” tube which does the other part of the X. Again, careful calculation of the angles is one thing, but with tubes like this, they have to be right first time – there’s no “spare” length to play with, so care is order of the day. To get both correct took a couple of hours, but once welded in, they made the cage structure even stronger, and it’s only about half done. The welding is something I am quite proud of:

I’ve cut the shorter parts of the door bars, but today I’ve felt like death warmed up and been unable to do anything. Which is immensely frustrating as I’m working all weekend and the weather is going to be great. I just hope that I feel OK on Monday, and the weather is OK. The cage needs to be complete by the end of next week, or I’m in trouble.