thoughts on this tubing damage

Here are a few images of some of the roll cage tubes on the bunny, you guys think this is safe still?

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-Tom
DemonRallyTeam | Fine Tuning | CTS Turbo & RP Turbos | RalleyTuned | JRM | Meister Autowerks
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I'm thinking you are asking for trouble posting those pics.

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Ted Mendham
www.rensport.net

Lot's of little deformations there in important places. The cage did it's job, I wouldn't re-use it.

Those small, localized deformations actually have a higher yield strength now (assuming that there are no cracks, and the material ONLY deformed), but part of the toughness (total energy absorption before failure) has been used up.

If you want to reuse it, and trust it, you would want to clean off all the paint down to bare metal, do a dye penetrant test to check for cracks, and then do a localized heat treatment to stress relieve and get the toughness back.

However, convincing a scrutineer that the science is all correct would probably be the hard part.

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Monika Hawkinson
Seattle, WA



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/02/2008 12:42PM by Sofa King.

Considering my amount of engineering knowledge, this IS the place to post this, I don't care if a scruitineer sees this, the car needs to be good to go again before we put the rebuild or new build effort together. This isn't a money thing, it is a safety thing, I don't fuck with the roll cage, I'm not about to race something with the possibility of a cage failure, especially at the pace we typically run with.

I'm not an engineer or much of a car builder, I have fundamental welding skills and moderate mechanical ability, I can drive the car to and apparently beyond its limits however.

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-Tom
DemonRallyTeam | Fine Tuning | CTS Turbo & RP Turbos | RalleyTuned | JRM | Meister Autowerks
Spitfire EFI | Product Apparel | JVAB Imports | NLS | AP Tuning | USRT

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Officially...the cage appears to be re-usable. Give me a call at the shop 360-482-8715 or my cell 360-580-1377 .

Gene McCullough
RA Western Tech Supervisor

The deformations are miniscule compared to the bending of the tubes in the first place, and stresses probably small compared to the stresses built-up in the welding process. I would be grinding off the cracked paint and checking for actual metal cracks. Look at the weld at the upper right A-pillar gusset to see if the tube has broken or just the weld. It's ultimatley Gene's call there in the NW; he da man!

Regards,
Mark B.

An answer from a person I trust.

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RichardM