Are you putting another cage in your current 80?
Chinese snorkel=1, fzj80=zero
- Thread starter Booger weldz
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I need a cage
It's the weight of our rigs that's working against us here. Keeping 3 tons(or 4+ in some cases) from crushing the occupants in a crash is tough work for skinny A-posts. And the engineering and metallurgical components of the design, while quite good at the time, are now probably 25 years old. Today there are nickel-boron alloys and other stuff being incorporated into some vehicles that's so tough you can't cut it with the normal emergency rescue tools, it has to be pried away or sawed through. Crazy strong stuff, and boy it really does work.
Thing is, there's two kinds of crashes we're talkng about here, the rolling down a mountain type at relatively low speed with multiple impacts over a few seconds and a high speed highway type of crash- typically with one very large impact over only a few milliseconds and then maybe some smaller ones. The impacts and injuries sustained are very different between these two kinds of crashes, and as much as we love them the protective qualities of the 80 are now outdated, even on the airbag equipped models. (I'd still take my 80 over a Prius if I knew I was going to have a wreck, but that's just my own prejudice at work. Statistically the newer car is safer, I say
that, gimme a big truck.) Based on 30+ years in emergency services I'd be against an interior cage in pretty much any on-road vehicle unless you went for the 'full meal deal' complete with helmets and five-point harnesses. I've seen too many injuries from striking the interior of vehicles in crashes. There's three impacts in every crash, the first is the vehicle striking something, then the occupant striking the inside of the vehicle, then the internal organs striking the restraints, which may be either the skeletal structure of the body or coming up hard against the seat belt or interior vehicle surface. Air bags spread the force of the impact over a short period of time and over a greater surface area to help lessen the damage. Some kinesthetic models also show a fourth impact where the organs recoil inside the body but this is pretty minor compared to all the other forces involved and usually the only serious injuries from this may be head injuries where the brain gets sloshed around like a sponge in a bucket. (There is a traumatic brain injury pattern called a coup-contrecoup injury from this type of force, where the actual brain damage is on the opposite side from the impact.)
My point is, an interior roll cage will not help at all in a frontal impact, may make things worse in a side impact, and can really only help by keeping the roof from collapsing in a rollover, in which case the vehicle may survive but not the occupants if they smash their skulls on the cage during the accident. Or, they may just be drooling in a wheelchair and wearing a diaper for the rest of their life due to surviving the crash but receiving severe traumatic brain injuries. Could you get these injuries without the cage? Sure. Would you be more likely to get a head injury if you put strong metal tubes close to your skull? Absolutely. You can't put enough padding on a cage to make it safe in a severe impact unless there is other protective gear(like a helmet) being used, not without having the cage padding be so large in diameter that there's just no room for it.
An exo-cage would be a lot safer for the occupants in any significant wreck. And they look cool as all get-out too, but that's beside the point. Now this is a (mostly) free country and folks can do (mostly) whatever they want, even if it's putting the equivalent of 20 sticks of dynamite(that's 5 gallons of gasoline as fuel/air vapor) on their back bumper where any idiot texting while driving can smash into it. Hey, knock yourself out. If you want an interior roll cage then it's your money- go for it. Just please think about it first and then consider filling out the organ donor portion on your driver's license, because a good percentage of those donated organs come from folks that are brain dead after smashing their skulls in various traumatic accidents. You could really help somebody that would have no chance at life otherwise.
As always, this is only my opinion and your mileage may vary.
Question for you since you have seen more accidents that the normal person would care to think about. I have seen a few people running harnesses in non caged vehicles. To me having your body stuck in the upright position in a roll over doesn't seem smart. Being able to lean whether voluntarily or by the forces of a roll over would seem to help when the A pillar is crushed. Is this how people are surviving these type of wrecks?It's the weight of our rigs that's working against us here. Keeping 3 tons(or 4+ in some cases) from crushing the occupants in a crash is tough work for skinny A-posts. And the engineering and metallurgical components of the design, while quite good at the time, are now probably 25 years old. Today there are nickel-boron alloys and other stuff being incorporated into some vehicles that's so tough you can't cut it with the normal emergency rescue tools, it has to be pried away or sawed through. Crazy strong stuff, and boy it really does work.
Thing is, there's two kinds of crashes we're talkng about here, the rolling down a mountain type at relatively low speed with multiple impacts over a few seconds and a high speed highway type of crash- typically with one very large impact over only a few milliseconds and then maybe some smaller ones. The impacts and injuries sustained are very different between these two kinds of crashes, and as much as we love them the protective qualities of the 80 are now outdated, even on the airbag equipped models. (I'd still take my 80 over a Prius if I knew I was going to have a wreck, but that's just my own prejudice at work. Statistically the newer car is safer, I say
Based on 30+ years in emergency services I'd be against an interior cage in pretty much any on-road vehicle unless you went for the 'full meal deal' complete with helmets and five-point harnesses. I've seen too many injuries from striking the interior of vehicles in crashes. There's three impacts in every crash, the first is the vehicle striking something, then the occupant striking the inside of the vehicle, then the internal organs striking the restraints, which may be either the skeletal structure of the body or coming up hard against the seat belt or interior vehicle surface. Air bags spread the force of the impact over a short period of time and over a greater surface area to help lessen the damage. Some kinesthetic models also show a fourth impact where the organs recoil inside the body but this is pretty minor compared to all the other forces involved and usually the only serious injuries from this may be head injuries where the brain gets sloshed around like a sponge in a bucket. (There is a traumatic brain injury pattern called a coup-contrecoup injury from this type of force, where the actual brain damage is on the opposite side from the impact.)
My point is, an interior roll cage will not help at all in a frontal impact, may make things worse in a side impact, and can really only help by keeping the roof from collapsing in a rollover, in which case the vehicle may survive but not the occupants if they smash their skulls on the cage during the accident. Or, they may just be drooling in a wheelchair and wearing a diaper for the rest of their life due to surviving the crash but receiving severe traumatic brain injuries. Could you get these injuries without the cage? Sure. Would you be more likely to get a head injury if you put strong metal tubes close to your skull? Absolutely. You can't put enough padding on a cage to make it safe in a severe impact unless there is other protective gear(like a helmet) being used, not without having the cage padding be so large in diameter that there's just no room for it.
An exo-cage would be a lot safer for the occupants in any significant wreck. And they look cool as all get-out too, but that's beside the point. Now this is a (mostly) free country and folks can do (mostly) whatever they want, even if it's putting the equivalent of 20 sticks of dynamite(that's 5 gallons of gasoline as fuel/air vapor) on their back bumper where any idiot texting while driving can smash into it. Hey, knock yourself out. If you want an interior roll cage then it's your money- go for it. Just please think about it first and then consider filling out the organ donor portion on your driver's license, because a good percentage of those donated organs come from folks that are brain dead after smashing their skulls in various traumatic accidents. You could really help somebody that would have no chance at life otherwise.
As always, this is only my opinion and your mileage may vary.
I hate threads like this 
Gives me nightmares
Glad everyone was ok
I'm sure that picture will put Safari out of business for good
Gives me nightmares
Glad everyone was ok
I'm sure that picture will put Safari out of business for good
I'm sure that picture will put Safari out of business for good
Plastic has a weird way of bending back into shape. It doesn't matter which snorkel it was. It's the fact that it was plastic is why it's still there. If it were a metal tubed snorkel then it would look like the rest of the truck.
And the Best post of the day award goes to.....
Pick up your wizzo button on the way out..
Pick up your wizzo button on the way out..
In order to have an interior cage that will truly protect us, I agree with @artech. Vehicles are made to be job-specific. You will never take a Prius off-roading (intentionally) without a LOT of modifications. Our trucks are made to be able to traverse MOST real-world on and off-road conditions, even when stock.
The old school of thought was to make the car stout and stiff to resist the impact and reduce damage to the vehicle. We learned, through time, that this was good for the car, but not so good for the occupants. Death rates went up, in spite of the car's "safety features" (My Studebaker has a Knee-Pad crash protection on the dash....laughable by today's standards)
We also used to build suspensions that were hell for stout and could support the empire state building. Then we learned that when we jumped them, the heavy spring rates caused them to REFLECT all the energy and high out-of -control- bounces became a problem (Monster Trucks). When Bigfoot "revolutionized" the off roading and Monster Truck world by creating an energy-absorbing suspension and out-running EVERYONE in their course, everyone woke up to the differences that ABSORBING the energy caused.
As we as a whole have started to learn, we can engineer vehicles to sacrifice themselves to save us. Make the suspension softer to ABSORB the energy and dissipate it into the rest of the car. Make it so the front end or rear end of the car shears off or crumples to absorb the energy of the crash. Make it so the cabin remains intact and the bodies inside it are restrained so they are not loose projectiles within, experiencing secondary, tertiary, and quaternary collisions in a single event.
We in the Off-Roading world are looking to find the best of ALL worlds. We want a vehicle to daily drive, go off road, climb over rocks and obstacles, dig through the deepest mud, protect us in a crash, be inexpensive, get great fuel mileage, look great, and most importantly, make us look better than anyone else on the planet. Well, we all know that we don't get all of those options without sacrifices.
We install huge bumpers on the front and rear of the truck to reflect energy and make it so whomever or whatever hits us sustains the damage and not us. We make our trucks heavier to carry our gear and support all those extra pieces of equipment we hang on them. We work on our engines to produce more HP and Torque to help the weak engine push all the additional weight and girth we have achieved. Now we have reached the point when we realize we have exceeded the structural integrity of them. Let's build a cage on the interior (or exterior) so it will not crush it in a rollover, frontal, rear, or side crash.
We have now come full circle again to the old cars. We have successfully made them heavier, stiffer, and more powerful, in order to prevent damage and reflect energy. Good for the truck, not so good for thee occupants.
As much as I am FOR the building of cages interior and making it to protect someone from such a crash, I fully understand what @artech is saying and it is proven out in Engineering throughout the auto industry. It goes against every fiber in my being to say, maybe I WON'T install a cage in my truck, so the rest of it can absorb the energy and reduce the energy transferred into me inside the vehicle. I RARELY go off road, so I don;t really NEED it in my DD. For those of you that DO use your truck for off road, realize the changes and compromises that are being made on both sides of the coin.
Wear your seat belt and drive safely. Don't roll it down a mountain.
The old school of thought was to make the car stout and stiff to resist the impact and reduce damage to the vehicle. We learned, through time, that this was good for the car, but not so good for the occupants. Death rates went up, in spite of the car's "safety features" (My Studebaker has a Knee-Pad crash protection on the dash....laughable by today's standards)
We also used to build suspensions that were hell for stout and could support the empire state building. Then we learned that when we jumped them, the heavy spring rates caused them to REFLECT all the energy and high out-of -control- bounces became a problem (Monster Trucks). When Bigfoot "revolutionized" the off roading and Monster Truck world by creating an energy-absorbing suspension and out-running EVERYONE in their course, everyone woke up to the differences that ABSORBING the energy caused.
As we as a whole have started to learn, we can engineer vehicles to sacrifice themselves to save us. Make the suspension softer to ABSORB the energy and dissipate it into the rest of the car. Make it so the front end or rear end of the car shears off or crumples to absorb the energy of the crash. Make it so the cabin remains intact and the bodies inside it are restrained so they are not loose projectiles within, experiencing secondary, tertiary, and quaternary collisions in a single event.
We in the Off-Roading world are looking to find the best of ALL worlds. We want a vehicle to daily drive, go off road, climb over rocks and obstacles, dig through the deepest mud, protect us in a crash, be inexpensive, get great fuel mileage, look great, and most importantly, make us look better than anyone else on the planet. Well, we all know that we don't get all of those options without sacrifices.
We install huge bumpers on the front and rear of the truck to reflect energy and make it so whomever or whatever hits us sustains the damage and not us. We make our trucks heavier to carry our gear and support all those extra pieces of equipment we hang on them. We work on our engines to produce more HP and Torque to help the weak engine push all the additional weight and girth we have achieved. Now we have reached the point when we realize we have exceeded the structural integrity of them. Let's build a cage on the interior (or exterior) so it will not crush it in a rollover, frontal, rear, or side crash.
We have now come full circle again to the old cars. We have successfully made them heavier, stiffer, and more powerful, in order to prevent damage and reflect energy. Good for the truck, not so good for thee occupants.
As much as I am FOR the building of cages interior and making it to protect someone from such a crash, I fully understand what @artech is saying and it is proven out in Engineering throughout the auto industry. It goes against every fiber in my being to say, maybe I WON'T install a cage in my truck, so the rest of it can absorb the energy and reduce the energy transferred into me inside the vehicle. I RARELY go off road, so I don;t really NEED it in my DD. For those of you that DO use your truck for off road, realize the changes and compromises that are being made on both sides of the coin.
Wear your seat belt and drive safely. Don't roll it down a mountain.
This is why I was dreaming up a center rib roll cage design. Triangulated from the floor to a center rib along the interior of the roof. Run two bars 8 inches apart to the front and the rear and loop them. I can envision it better than I can describe it. However this would allow the truck to retain crumple zones and for the A,B, C and D pillars to deform slightly The benefit is that it would keep the roof from fully collapsing.
This would help in on road roll overs and provide a better than stock level of protection in a multiple roll over off road. It wouldn't keep the interior space as undisturbed as a full roll cage but it would be better than nothing.
This would help in on road roll overs and provide a better than stock level of protection in a multiple roll over off road. It wouldn't keep the interior space as undisturbed as a full roll cage but it would be better than nothing.
Triangulated effect so it will roll back to it's wheels, but support it in the center so there is still a protected crumple zone for the occupants.
Sorry for your loss, glad that everyone is okay.
Great points, thanks for the insight. Realistically, if I ever were to build a cage it would most likely be an exo anyways because it seems easier to do from the outside and you get the added body protection while wheeling
not trying to start a bad subject and mean no disrespect to the OP as I am very sorry that he had to go through the loss of his cruiser but wondering if having a 3 link had anything to do with the crash? Are they harder to control in an adverse situation? again, just curious on what the differences are vs. the stock setup on the 80......
I'm no statistician but I'd be willing to bet the number of radius arm 80s that have rolled is a lot higher than the number of 3-linked 80s that have rolled.
sure, but thats an inaccurate comparison as all 80's came out of the factory with radius arms. You would have to compare rollovers of similarly modified vehicles as Boogers.
I can tell you that if we had a three link on my 94 that it would have rolled over on the road as we skidded sideways rather than not rolling as it did until it went into the ditch. But without running calcs and really dissecting the vectors at play I'm not sure that I can stand behind this statement 100% just seems like reasonable assumption in my engineers head.
I can tell you that if we had a three link on my 94 that it would have rolled over on the road as we skidded sideways rather than not rolling as it did until it went into the ditch. But without running calcs and really dissecting the vectors at play I'm not sure that I can stand behind this statement 100% just seems like reasonable assumption in my engineers head.
FWIW my insurance company (Mercury) would not have paid out with a 3-link modded truck. I just got off the phone with my agent just now and brought this up while on with him. Lifting the truck is one thing but once you start changing "steering geometry" its no longer covered under their policy. Hopefully the insurance you have doesn't look at that. Its not a CA thing, its an individual company/policy thing.
3-link does give a rig the ability to generate a lot of more weight transfer with all the additional travel
I don't think any insurance company would cover a car with modified custom steering........