New Max 2 No Roll Bar

[phil_1066]

Hi, Bought a new Max 2 for I think a very very good price... the only downside is that it has no roll bar or seats...... and I live in Ireland where there is no dealer to supply them. The only feasible option open to me is to fabricate the bar. Could anyone give me dimensions of a bar for me to work off.
Phil

[MarshallEpp]

ill go measure mine up now and post the measurements in a while. OK from side to side at the base it is 40 3/4 center - center 12inches with a 3 inch offset to the rear and then through the body.the bar has a plate running across the bottom.from the body to the center of the top of the bar is 28 inches.also just before the 90 degree bend the bar closes down to 35 3/4 so it is wider at the bottom than it is at the top. hope this helps.

[Mike]

Just a word of warning, the factory roll bar has some weird bends especially under the body and a weird mounting angle on the seat belt plate. It would probably be easier to build a roll cage that mounts on the outside of the body on a body band instead of trying to recreate the factory roll bar.

I'm definitely not trying to discourage you from making a factory style roll bar. It can be done, just study the angles carefully before you do. Here is a picture of the seat belt / roll bar mounting plate:
Max-II-body-prop-3.jpg

You can see that it even bends a little on the ends where the roll bar mounts. This one has had the factory roll bar removed but if you look through the gallery you should be able to find some more pictures of the roll bar mount. Good luck!

[phil_1066]

Many thanks.
I have a very good welder who is going make a split shift lever for me so I will talk to him about a roll cage.
Cheers

[MarshallEpp]

Yes phil mike is right would be a lot easier if you went the belly band route.

[phil_1066]

Is the belly band type strong enough as it will only be bolted to the plastic lip

[Mike]

Yes, that is strong enough. That is how the Max IV's roll cage is mounted.

[thebuggyman1]

Is the belly band type strong enough as it will only be bolted to the plastic lip

It's like unibody construction......the strength is in the assembly as a whole.

[phil_1066]

Does anyone have any decent plans, not necessarily exact dimensions just an idea of what works well. Could i build a mount for a winch into the roll bar at the same time.
Phil

[Mike]

You could build the winch mount into the body band if you wanted to. That wouldn't hurt anything. The only downside into doing that is that you really have to reinforce the mount to get it not to flex when you are under load. If you have it in the stock location with the backplate, it does a good job of distributing the load over the front of the body. Look through the Max photo gallery here on the site to get an idea of what you like and then try to copy it. I'm sure most of the ones you see will work well.

I built this one a while back and was very pleased with it:


The only two things I would change would be to make the middle two bars lean in just a little bit so that they do not snag on trees when you are off camber and I would probably make it just a little bit shorter. Overall I was very pleased with it. Hopefully that will help get some ideas going.

[phil_1066]

many thanks, that has given me a good idea. I will now talk nicely to my welder friend and maybe buy him a Guiness or two.
Phil

[Ronaldlewis]

you may want to give second thoughts to a bodyband on a Max II ,dont forget you have to undo all those wingnuts to lift the body up, and if you bolt a bodyband on you will need to take all the bolts off, just a thought !!!

[phil_1066]

I don't mind that too much. I think I would prefer putting a body band on rather than cut holes in the top (not brilliant at cutting holes). Can anyone give me an idea on how high to make the cross bar over the head ( I am about six foot so need to make sure I can climb in and out ok)