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From: c.d.freudenberg
Fromemail: c.d.freudenberg@which.net
Category: Technical
Remote Name: 62.255.32.7
Date: 07 Jul 2002
Time: 07:44:14
It has not been possible to edit or delete my text "posted" previously, so it remains posted. Earlier technology can be a lot easier to work than the complexity of modern machinery (e.g. computer technology)! Here is a new text. Apologies.
Seat belts without a roll cage are not & the best idea. The three seat belts on my Jupiter are full harness three point fixed belts were fitted initially without a roll cage because I felt that even a minor knock would cause injury.
I read about fitting roll cages in the Autostorica catalogue ( www.autostorica.com ) & enquired at the showroom at Grand Prix Racewear Ltd. , Chiswick, London. They referred me to Safety Devices Ltd. I spoke with Pete Dixon who looked at my car with its hard top & reassured me that a roll cage could be fitted.
The Jupiter has a very strong chassis to which a roll cage can be attached. Mine has a hard top which is quite roomy because I'm tall. Since decapitation is more likely with seat belts & no roll cage, a roll cage was fitted to my Jupiter. Safety Devices Ltd., would not have fitted to a Jupiter for motor racing what they fitted to my car but it turned out that it was possible to make a roll cage to fit inside the hard top on my car.
Dennis Sparrow made six lower fixing points which Safety Devices Ltd., decided were good to fix the three belts to my car. The three single upper belt fixing points are to a roll cage member which lies going parallel & just behind the top of the Jupiter bench seat back.
Roll cages on historic cars fitted by Safety Devices Ltd are un-boltable.
For museum display/exhibiting, rather than normal driving (mine does not include motor racing), the roll cage can be removed (unbolted) and the normal tonneau put on. The plates on to which the roll cage is bolted are hidden behind the seat back. Not wanting to be decapitated, Dennis Sparrow and Pete Dixon fitted a roll cage to the historic competition R1 Jupiter. Roll cage, belts & lights are no guarantee against a shunt in modern traffic (or a concertinering between modern heavy lorries on a motorway for example)!
My hard top had been made by John Blazé, designed to be sympathetic in shape to the car & to drivers' height. It can be lifted off easily, preferably by two people. It has a 1950's Morris Minor rear screen for better vision. The car has additional lights for better safety in urban traffic to the usual Jupiter rear red lights which in my case are wired to American Specification to be stop/tail/indicators. I also have two red rear bright indicator/stop light LED's for left & right, tucked out of sight, under the spare wheel tray door. And on each side of the hard top, there are Morris Minor yellow indicator lights (with more domed lenses than Jupiter) as side/tail indicator lights (wired, American Specification, to double filament front white indicator/side lights. Larger than standard size rear reflectors are on the rear (and hard top) & a pair of reversing lights either side of the number plate.
An inertia wheel on the driver’s belt would be preferable but this has not been possible (not room) though Safety Devices could supply such three point full harness belts.