Roof removal

I gutted the entire car prior to cage fab. Since this car were to be fit with sill bars the main hoop cant drop down to weld the top. Solution: take off the roof. I recruited Gabe who loves to hang out at TMS instead of his corporate mechanic job. He did the tedious job of drilling the 800 spot welds that held the roof skin on. Cheers to you Gabe!

I found this spot weld cutter on sale at Harbor Freight for $2. Though I'd give it a try, since these cutters are near $20 on the tool trucks. That was over a year ago, and I finally had to flip the cutting edge after almost 2 cars worth of roll cage prep. Meanwhile the top of the cage was finished and the roof is ready to go back on.

Start with one corner and fill a couple holes








Oh snap! The origional cut spot weld don't line up on the second
corner!







Adjust.

Bueno!

Keep jumping corners and gaps to stick the roof back on, then bend some more tube.





I have a poor attention span so about half of the roof is spot welded back on. I've moved on to other parts of the cage/swap. I think I'll just put it off until the glass is ready to go back in. Oh and remember to seal the F... er, i mean rain out of the length of the seam.

Back to work.

GC Impreza

Here's another Masterpiece nearing completion. It's a 93 Impreza L, came to TMS as my car, but I've decided to let it go to my home Nig-ita Rafael. After a small power-slide accident, on our favorite local dirt road, his bugeye WRX was laid to rest. Soon after Rafael came across a 1991 Subaru Legacy Sport with 2.2l turbo, 5 speed, and ABS. He logged some flight time and proved the Legacy chassis wasn't quite fit for him either, so we've decided to swap the EJ22t and drivetrain into the little red GC. Our intern Jessee has been the relentless swap master of all the Legacy body and engine harness'. I've been erecting the roll cage following FIA specifications, however using 1026 DOM tubing. The cage is built with .120" wall thickness throughout. 1.75" diameter was use for the main hoop, front lateral hoops, fore-head, rear down, door, sill, seat belt and A-pillar re-inforcement bars. 1.5" inch diameter tube was used everywhere else, still thick wall .120".