The V8 Owners Forum -

Hi Guys

Just wondering if anyone has ever seen anti-intrusion bars added to the doors of a classic? Would like some extra side impact protection but can't have a cage for several reasons.

Would it just be a case of adding a bar/bars mid way up (space permitting) or are there other considerations? Is there anything that needs to be done to allow the energy to be transferred to the rest of the frame? Don't want to have the door retain it's integrity but just be pushed into the car.

Thanks
Cam

cammmy wrote: Just wondering if anyone has ever seen anti-intrusion bars added to the doors of a classic?

Rover P6's for the American market had them as standard. I have a set for mine which I might get round to fitting one day, so I see no reason why some couldn't be made to fit any car providing there's enough room in the door with all the internals in place.

Cool thanks.

Just wondering if there is anything else required to make it work properly. I imagine BL just threw a bar in there to meet whatever regs; rather that re-engineering things to be as safe as possible.

cammmy wrote:Cool thanks.

Just wondering if there is anything else required to make it work properly. I imagine BL just threw a bar in there to meet whatever regs; rather that re-engineering things to be as safe as possible.

On the P6 they're just bolted to the door shell with no other mods whatsoever, but it would help, and although it will never be up to modern standards, every little helps.

True, thanks.

harvey wrote:On the P6 they're just bolted to the door shell with no other mods whatsoever, but it would help, and although it will never be up to modern standards, every little helps.

On Madame's Hyundai they are spot welded to the frame at the ends and glued to the skin. They look pretty Mickey Mouse, too, so I guess it's probably a box ticking thing in most cases.

Yeah, I don't need to tick the boxes though I want the actual safety improvement.

Hi Cammmy
rather than door bars have you considered using composite fabric approach to side impact intrusion. Without a cage or substantial reinforcement to mount door tubes too you are really only going to stop blunt impact intrusion by spreading the loads across the door skin and not keep high impact sharp objects out. As a lighter alternative you could line the outer door skin with truck bed liner (paint on polyurethane stuff) and layer on Kevlar fabric or Kevlar/carbon fiber mix, stippling in the bed liner material to glue it in place, do about 3 layers with the weave at different angles and it will provide very good protection against spiky stuff and would spread blunt impact loads across the door better and not weigh very much.
Another idea might be to put the side impact protection into the side of the seat a similar thing in that you could fix layers of composite blast blanket into the side fabric of the seat.
Best regards
Mike

Hi Mike

I hadn't thought of that but am intrigued! Have you seen it done before/How well it held up under impact?

Some anti intrusion bars can cause problems in that they will jam the door shut in the closed position so after an accident passengers cannot escape.

If the bars are on the passenger side of door internals behind a door card they can also cause more injuries as a moving body hits the immovable object.

In my opinion and it is only that ..... An opinion
If you drive an old car you drive it with the problems of an old car

If you race it you fully cage it which in turn then becomes a problem as it is then race only so your unprotected head etc will never be able to hit the bars as it will always be in a helmet

Ian

Hi Cammy
I have used several types of loose weave fabric to make anti stab vests (don't ask on here) and have used steel and fabric combinations with a bitumen matrix to make arrow and black-powder-fire-arm proof armour, and the combination works very well indeed! I have also seen demonstrations of how good truck bed liner is as a matrix for fiber reinforcement (glass strand woven roving) to make a very tough flexible sharp object proof material. Kevlar is already used as a transmission/blower safety blanket and is quite remarkably tough, very good in a flexible matrix like cyanoaceilate/urethane sealant and silicone epoxy. I have not done this specific combination in this application but I have used the various components in other applications.
Best regards
Mike

Ian Anderson wrote:In my opinion and it is only that ..... An opinion
If you drive an old car you drive it with the problems of an old car

If you race it you fully cage it which in turn then becomes a problem as it is then race only so your unprotected head etc will never be able to hit the bars as it will always be in a helmet

Ian

Hi Ian. Thanks for that, I realise it's a old car but I don't think that means we can't try and bring some modern technology in to make it better; otherwise we would never install EFI or put modern brakes on.

A cage is not an option as it's not a race car and never will be. The laws on cages are entirely different back home from here in the UK.

We'll have to discuss that Mike, it's an interesting option.

I can second the toughness of Kevlar. It is what the airframe of the Apache among others is made of and is very tough for impact resistance.