Rollcage - 'Double D' SLR, Safety Devices for Imperial.

[ste]

Hello.

 

My Caterham will be used on track and I'm thinking of adding a cage. I don't want this to become a thread about the pros and cons so if we could leave that elsewhere that would be great. The car is a '98 SLR, so De Dion imperial chassis. I've looked at the various options and weighed up the implications of weather gear / windscreen / accessibility etc. Essentially I think I'll use the car in aeroscreen mode with carbon half doors so my search has ended at an SLR 'Double D' cage. I've found a Safety Devices one for sale, so the early SLR cage that attaches the front hoop to the scuttle rather than lower down through the side skin to the chassis rail.

My understanding is that there are already threaded bosses in place for the 2 main mounts that are under the 'door aperture' area. Can anyone confirm please?

I've heard mention of a 'z bracket' that allows the forward mounts to attach to the existing scuttle mounts. I can't find what this looks like though or how it works and can't picture how it would mount. Can anyone provide some insight into that please?

Any help appreciated including reasons to use a different cage instead. One of my criteria is lightweight, so if the Caged manufactured SLR cage is lighter I'd consider one of those instead.

[Jonathan Kay]

My understanding is that there are already threaded bosses in place for the 2 main mounts that are under the 'door aperture' area. Can anyone confirm please?

It seems to be variable and I don't think that all of the combinations are listed in one convenient place! 

You could try asking Arch with your chassis number and see if they can tell from their records.

Or peeking round the edge of the interior panel: 1,2.

Jonathan

PS: Full search of the archives.

[Wrightpayne]

The chassis usually comes with the petty strut boss on the passenger side and same bush on the drivers side, enabling fitment of the roadsport cage.

The SLR cage needs 4 fixings down each side - I cannot remember if it uses the petty stut ones, so as a minimum you’re 6 bosses missing.

I remember seeing a plate with two bosses welded on, on Caterham parts which was the quick & dirty fixing method. Drill 4 big holes in the upper chassis tube and bolt together. Not a good solution IMHO.

To be safe I think you need all the bosses welding in - perhaps give arch a call for a quote? A friend who is a professional welder/fabricator fitted his own Caged slr version cage and it was a lot of work!

Alternate is a roadsport cage, which I have the tall version of.

regards

Ian

[ste]

Thanks. The car has just been to Arch for a new rear skin and is now at TSK for a full repaint, so I'll speak to Bruce or Phil at Arch but can also take a look for the bosses as the internal panels are currently off.

[ste]

I've also been offered a single-diagonal Roadsport cage so that is an option too. It would prevent me from using my rigid carbon half-doors though as they wouldn't be able to slot in behind the scuttle at the front.

[Wrightpayne]

Just looked at mine and think I’d be able to slot the half doors behind the scuttle if I removed the thick rubber edging from the edge of the scuttle.

Ian

[ste]

That's really useful, thanks for checking. I have 2 scuttles and the aeroscreen one (no wiper-boss holes) doesn't have that edging.