Up to this point in the build, the Notso Special has been a fairly straightforward hot rod build, if you discount the sections of rollcage structure already in place. With the bodywork sorted, I could now move onto fabricating the remainder of the ’cage.
Back in January at the Grand National Roadster Show, a discussion with Craig Morrison of Art Morrison Enterprises about the project resulted in the offer to have the company build the “Funny Car” section of the cage. The first order of business then was to fabricate a jig/pattern, from which Art Morrison Enterprises could make the cage. With this duly made and shipped off to their facility in Washington, I eagerly awaited the delivery of a bunch of bent tubing, followed by assembling the cage on top of the tubing I’d already installed. Knowing where the vertical tubes of the Funny Car cage intersected the shoulder tube, I could then make and install the vertical tubing and diagonals from here to the chassis. Clear so far?
Armed with a number of 20-foot lengths of 1 5/8-inch 0.134-inch wall tubing (though the minimum wall thickness required by SCTA is 0.120 inch), I set about bending and notching all the tubes to meet the SCTA rulebook requirements, tack-welding the structure together. If you plan on doing something similar, don’t underestimate the time it takes. I built a Pro Street Anglia with a cage some 23 years ago, and vowed never to do another, yet here I am! You’ve probably gathered by now that I like to do as much of the work as possible on my projects myself; however, while I can TIG weld, I wouldn’t say I’m proficient enough to weld a rollcage, which after all, is responsible for saving a life in the event of an accident.
1 After sitting in the car, and measuring where my head would be, I set an old MX helmet on my camera tripod in the same position, to enable me to construct the cage template at the desired height. SCTA rules state there has to be a maximum of 2 inches between the rear of the helmet and a padded headrest, and that the front hoop of the cage is a minimum of 3 inches forward of the front of the helmet.
With this in mind, I hauled the tacked-together chassis/cage over to Circle City Hot Rods, where owner Jimmy White spent eight solid hours welding it all together, while I carefully ground off my MIG weld tacks and re-cleaned all the joints as he went. Fun stuff! The finished chassis was then taken to the Source Interlink Tech Center where I can now set about final assembly. No more tedious tube notching for me, thank goodness!
