RiverDave
In it to win it
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- Sep 13, 2007
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This RZR does belong to a member of RDP and is being built by Eric Barker (Barkers Fabrication) here in LHC. I'm not sure if the inmate wants his name attached to the build or if he wants to be anonymous so I'll let him decide that. The project started off with the idea that they wanted a cage built that was actually "safe" god forbid you actually do wad one of these things up.
To be clear this isn't a full on race build, however it is going to be probably a little different than what you see in most RZR builds. I don't have a timeline for the project because the build is "fluid" in that it has changed a few times and will likely change more as the build progresses but I would guess it at 6-8 weeks total.
So lets start with the idea that the stock cages fold up like laundry. Most people go out and purchase a cage and bolt it onto the car and call it good. Upon taking the car apart Eric decided he should probably make some changes to the frame itself as well. First things first there is nothing but a piece of plastic between the passenger compartment and the front suspension. In short if you are bee bopping down the trail at 40-50 mph and you tag a giant boulder and it rips the front suspension off the car, your legs (and possibly life) are in gods hands if that decides to come into the passenger compartment.
This picture is the front of the car taken apart. At the right of the picture you can now see a chromoly bar welded in place that goes diagonal across this area to prevent the wheel / suspension arms / shocks etc.. from actually coming into the passenger compartment in the event of a major catastrophe.
Looking at it from the inside of the car looking out you can see the bars clearly on the drivers side, and on the passenger side.
Now having taken the car apart, Eric took a look at the frame itself and it is also bolted together and kinda "flimsy" much like the original cage up top. He decided to reinforce the frame with chromoly as well. There isn't much point to putting some double throw down bad ass cage on top of a weak frame. In this picture you can see the chromoly tubing reinforcing the lower frame rails. (You could go a step further than this if you wanted, but for a play RZR this is more than adequate)
Now the frame of the car as mentioned earlier is bolted together just like the cage up top was, so he decided to strengthen that area as well. He removed the bolts, slid a sleeve over the frame, welded studs in place of the bolts (correct me if I'm wrong on that Eric, but I'm pretty sure that's right) then slid chromoly sleeves over the joint and welded it all together.
Here you can see the upper and lower joints now welded together and sleeved. As I mentioned earlier in this thread, the build is "fluid" and somethings are changing on the fly. One of the details of the build changed so the actual upper tube in this picture below will be removed from the car as it was decided after this picture was taken that the rear of the cage is going to be widened slightly. To make all that happen and not make it look like an afterthought that top bar has to come out and be remade a little differently.
This build should take approximately 6-8 weeks depending, and I will update it every couple of days or once a week depending on how often I can get over there.
In the meantime here's a couple more random pics.
What is looks like from the rear as of two days ago.
Most likely won't be needing these anymore.
The front differential in this RZR was making some noise so it got yanked previous to the build. Being replaced by a Billet one.
I'm not sure if he's going to make a custom long travel for the car or not, but I suspect he will be. It will be interesting to see what he does with that. Especially as a 1 off using the stock shocks. (The shocks have gone through Shock Therapy now, so I'm not sure "stock" is the right word, but not different aftermarket shocks)
Any questions feel free to post it in the thread! I'm sure Eric will be watching.
Barkers Fabrication - 928-846-7755
To be clear this isn't a full on race build, however it is going to be probably a little different than what you see in most RZR builds. I don't have a timeline for the project because the build is "fluid" in that it has changed a few times and will likely change more as the build progresses but I would guess it at 6-8 weeks total.
So lets start with the idea that the stock cages fold up like laundry. Most people go out and purchase a cage and bolt it onto the car and call it good. Upon taking the car apart Eric decided he should probably make some changes to the frame itself as well. First things first there is nothing but a piece of plastic between the passenger compartment and the front suspension. In short if you are bee bopping down the trail at 40-50 mph and you tag a giant boulder and it rips the front suspension off the car, your legs (and possibly life) are in gods hands if that decides to come into the passenger compartment.
This picture is the front of the car taken apart. At the right of the picture you can now see a chromoly bar welded in place that goes diagonal across this area to prevent the wheel / suspension arms / shocks etc.. from actually coming into the passenger compartment in the event of a major catastrophe.
Looking at it from the inside of the car looking out you can see the bars clearly on the drivers side, and on the passenger side.
Now having taken the car apart, Eric took a look at the frame itself and it is also bolted together and kinda "flimsy" much like the original cage up top. He decided to reinforce the frame with chromoly as well. There isn't much point to putting some double throw down bad ass cage on top of a weak frame. In this picture you can see the chromoly tubing reinforcing the lower frame rails. (You could go a step further than this if you wanted, but for a play RZR this is more than adequate)
Now the frame of the car as mentioned earlier is bolted together just like the cage up top was, so he decided to strengthen that area as well. He removed the bolts, slid a sleeve over the frame, welded studs in place of the bolts (correct me if I'm wrong on that Eric, but I'm pretty sure that's right) then slid chromoly sleeves over the joint and welded it all together.
Here you can see the upper and lower joints now welded together and sleeved. As I mentioned earlier in this thread, the build is "fluid" and somethings are changing on the fly. One of the details of the build changed so the actual upper tube in this picture below will be removed from the car as it was decided after this picture was taken that the rear of the cage is going to be widened slightly. To make all that happen and not make it look like an afterthought that top bar has to come out and be remade a little differently.
This build should take approximately 6-8 weeks depending, and I will update it every couple of days or once a week depending on how often I can get over there.
In the meantime here's a couple more random pics.
What is looks like from the rear as of two days ago.
Most likely won't be needing these anymore.
The front differential in this RZR was making some noise so it got yanked previous to the build. Being replaced by a Billet one.
I'm not sure if he's going to make a custom long travel for the car or not, but I suspect he will be. It will be interesting to see what he does with that. Especially as a 1 off using the stock shocks. (The shocks have gone through Shock Therapy now, so I'm not sure "stock" is the right word, but not different aftermarket shocks)
Any questions feel free to post it in the thread! I'm sure Eric will be watching.
Barkers Fabrication - 928-846-7755