- Everybody ready? Everybody good?
all right.
(hand saw buzzes)
Have you ever seen a guy driving a convertible
with his head sticking above windshield like an idiot?
What do you think happens when he flips that thing.
Exactly what think happens, happened.
So today we're gonna try to preserve my beautiful melon.
We're gonna install a quality roll bar
in the Money Pit miata
and we've got this $65 roll bar in this miata.
We're gonna talk about the differences between the two
and then good measure we're gonna drop the $65 roll bar
on its head and see how it holds up,
Or probably doesn't.
(machine whirs) Oh god!
- I'm Zach and this is Money Pit, see what happens.
(introductory music)
Big thanks to CSR2 for sponsoring
this weeks episode of Money Pit.
You guys know I love road trips.
I've driven this American made monster across the country.
And I loved it.
Unfortunately this summer
I'm not gonna be taking too many road trips.
But thanks to CSR2
and their limited time American road trip event
I'm able to virtually take a road trip
In some of the dopest cars out there.
CSR2 is awesome because it delivers hyper real drag racing
to the palms of your hands.
You can drag race against people around the world
and even customize your cars.
You guys know I love customizing some cars.
The American road trip event being offered this summer
is a celebration of American car culture from coast to coast
and it only takes place until September 31st.
So hurry up, click the link in the description
and go download CSR2.
It's free and who knows
maybe you'll get to race against me.
I'll see you guys on the track.
(beep)
Hello I am Money pit.
- [Eddie] You think that cheap one's going to work for us?
- I sure don't.
(metal clanks)
Bummer!
(background music)
Dang
Man
I need to lose some weight.
So, before we show you what happens
if you find yourself upside down with a cheap roll bar.
Let's talk about what makes a good roll bar,
a good roll bar
that I'm willing to install in a car I drive everyday.
We've got these two roll bars here.
And this one cost about $65
I bought it on eBay
and we're gonna be installing it into the crusher miata
that's in the backyard.
This one I got from Zerek Fabrication
and it costs about $600
and this is the one I'm clearly gonna be installing
in our beloved Money Pit miata.
First off you shouldn't be able to pick up
a roll bar that easily.
There's just not much material here.
And the material that it is made out of
it says on the website, is a 304 stainless.
Which isn't really ideal for a roll bar
but I guess it could be okay if it was thick enough.
So I bet you I can bend this whole thing.
- [Eddie] Don't ruin it.
(Laughs)
So this is an example of a poor bolt in design.
So the real roll bar oh God!
So much heavier that's how you know.
There's a lot more material here.
So this is made out of a lot stronger material.
It's a one and three quarter inch heat treated dom.
D-O-M stands for "Drawn Over Mandrel"
It's a really uniform form of tubing.
So it starts from a flat sheet of metal
at whatever thickness you want the wall to be on your tube
and then it's drown over mandrel,
forced into a tube shape
and the seam is wielded up.
This is the material you want your bar to be made out of.
And look at these mounting feet.
These are some fat thick plates.
They use big, fat, thick, strong grade 8 hardware.
We'll drill some holes
and then this will sandwich the chassis
in between the roll bar
and you just clamp that thing down
at all four pads here.
So we've got the right material
but it's not just about material
it's also about the way the thing's designed.
You see this bar right here
this is what we call triangulation.
This helps strengthen this overall structure.
Without this bar this kinda rectangle area
wouldn't be as strong as it is
but with this, it's very strong.
If you look at the thing from a profile
you can see when it's mounted into the car
it'll create kind of a triangle.
So this gives you a lot more strength
in terms of front to back.
You see what I'm talking about here?
This things just gonna fold over.
If you're sliding on this thing
I don't think it's gonna move.
I think it's just gonna do it job.
And that's why I trust it
and that's why I'm putting it on the Money Pit miata.
Look at it, I mean think about it.
Touch it.
Feel it.
That's gotta be stronger.
Now let's go install it.
See how well that goes.
(soft background music)
(foreign accent) I lost the keys. I don't know.
(music fades)
all right so to get started on the install
of the real roll bar on the Money Pit miata
first thing I'm gonna do is take these seats out,
then we'll take this bar out
get this carpet and interior bits out of the way.
And then we'll be down to what we need to be down to.
We're gonna have to cut some metal today,
we're gonna have to cut some plastic,
which means it's gonna be a fun day.
(upbeat music)
If you're gonna do a roll bar and you're gonna do seats
it's probably a good idea to always to the roll bar first.
Cause the roll bar can create some fitting issues
with seats.
So it would suck to buy a set of seats and install them
just to find out that they don't work with your roll bar.
Do the roll bar first
and then you can kind of figure out what seats with work
before buying them, hopefully.
Oh yeah!
Well that was easily.
So first thing we get to cut today is the seat belts.
We're gonna free them of their loops
so that we can install
these seat belt retainers that came with the roll bar.
Zip zip.
(saw buzzes)
(soft music)
(drill rattles)
(metal clinks)
We got our plastic popper out
and we're gonna pop our plastic without breaking any of it.
(stutters) we'll see.
(pops interior)
All right, so this thing I'm pretty sure is gonna need
cut in half kind of somewhere right in here
so it fits with the bar.
So we'll do that later.
Okay so right up here,
in here is where we're gonna have to trim.
So might need to do that with a soft top kinda open.
But before we get there, I'm gonna get
all of this stuff out of the way.
These need to be popped off of this wall here
So the roll bar can actually slide
Between the chassis and these wires and cables.
All right now with all these wires out of the way.
We're gonna lift the soft top
so I should be able to get
a little bit more room under the carpet
and mark out the areas that I need to trim.
We're gonna cut some stuff.
(soft music)
(saw whirls)
(metal scratching)
All right, so here's what we're gonna do
I don't want spray paint in there
Because I'd have to tape a bunch of stuff off
Cause I would spray paint everywhere.
Cause I don't really care how it's looks
I just want it to be protected.
I'm just gonna spray some black spray paint
Nice and heavy on the sponge so it's saturated
and then I'll just dab it onto to the bear metal
enough to get it coated.
Once, maybe twice.
Then that should be good enough.
All right that's the last dab.
Now while that dries
I'm gonna take out the lower seat belt bolt.
Cause that's part of the mounting system to the bar.
Then once we get that out and that's dry
We slide the bar in and see how it fits.
You want help?
No I'm just kidding, just for the shot
I'll do it, I'll do it myself, I'll do it by myself.
(metal clinks)
- [Eddie] That sounded expensive.
- If only there were someone here that could help me.
I got it, I got it, I got it.
Let me suffer.
All right so the bar is in.
We've got these little seat belt bolts in.
So it kinda held in place
and it's exactly where it's gonna be for its final position.
So now all we gotta do is drill out all these holes
and in the mounting place through the chassis
and then sandwich everything up with the hardware.
But that's gonna be the tricky part.
I'm gonna jack the car up,
pop off the rear wheels so we can see in there real well
see what we're doing.
So the holes on this upper mounting point
are pretty hard to get to.
So you can go in with a die grinder
or with kind of a long drill bit.
I'm gonna so with the drill bit method,
and we'll see how it goes.
I think it's gonna work out.
But one of these holes is tougher that the rest
so hopefully I'll be able to get these front two
And these from those two understand where the third one is
and then do it from below.
(machine drilling)
Yeah it went straight through.
Looks like we're gonna be just fine.
That hole right there, is ready for the bolt.
(drilling intensifies)
So there is a hole already here from the grommet.
And it kind of overlaps with the third hard to get to hole.
I can see it, which is sweet.
(machine drills)
All right we got the rear mounting tabs all mounted up.
All the holes are holed and all the bolts are bolted.
So all we gotta do is, what seems like the easy part
and finish up these front pads.
Drill those holes, nut some bolts and that's it.
I meant we gotta our everything back together,
we gotta trim the interior piece.
So we gotta do all kinda stuff.
But the bar is almost totally installed.
So let's make some more holes.
(drill whirs)
(mumbling)
The cage is in.
Damn it, it's not a cage, the bar is in.
The roll bar is in and that feels super sturdy.
I mean this thing is part of the chassis now.
It might as well be rolted in.
Rolted in?
I don't think that's a word.
Okay so with the bar in, now it's time to head back
the other way and put things back together.
So I'm gonna put the wheels back on.
Get this thing back on the ground
and then we're gonna work on the interior.
And then we're gonna have to trim some interior pieces,
I don't think it's gonna be a big deal.
(upbeat music)
(machine drills)
Now the fact is we have put a metal structure
closer to my head which is a little bit concerning
for driving around, not wearing a helmet.
So I have to be considerate of that when I choose
my driving position and try to keep my head
as far from this as possible.
That is something to consider.
I mean you're putting metal closer to your head.
So if you aren't okay with taking that risk,
maybe don't, don't get a roll bar.
All right that's one roll bar down.
Let's go install the second one.
I have a feeling this is gonna go a lot quicker.
I just looked at the hardware pile
and it's like three bolts.
(upbeat music)
Here she is, the free-ata.
It's a huge piece of trash.
And that's why I got it in the backyard
cause I'm trash people.
So yeah we got this chassis for free
and we're gonna smash it.
It's already pretty smashed,
we're gonna smash it a little more.
All to find out whether or not this thing
would do anything if you found
yourself upside down on top of it.
I gotta say I don't think it's gonna do anything.
And I just got the hardware pack out
and well you just saw all the hardware
we used to install the other one.
This is all the hardware for this one.
(fake crowd gasps)
The good news is it looks like
it's gonna he super easy to install.
It used four bolts
And they line up with existing holes.
So way easier to install than the other one.
But through detriment.
Yo but, look at what this chassis came with like $4.27
(machine drills)
(laughs)
- [Eddie] Did you just break it?
- Almost man.
Well I guess that's what you get.
I mean are you convinced yet?
Is anybody still hanging on to this argument?
Listen my position on this whole thing is just bolstered.
I knew this thing was gonna be trash
but it's almost worse than I expected.
Look at that.
Like are you kidding me?
Compare that to what we did in the real miata.
I mean that's part of the chassis,
you ain't gone break that.
You ain't gone bend that.
All right, so if me shaking and tugging on some roll bars
hasn't convinced you
If talking about what makes a good roll bar
and looking at these things hasn't convinced you,
then you know there's only one thing left to do.
And it's gonna take that turd of a miata
down to Forsberg and drop it on it's head.
You know there's no chance
that we're gonna miss an opportunity to grab
a free miata chassis, a $65 roll bar
and go dump the thing off the forklift.
You know we're not missing that.
Let's go do it,
see what happens.
(indistinct yelling)
(loud metal clanks)
(beep)
We made it down here to Chris and Dylan.
Coolest dudes we know
and also coincidentally the only dudes we know
with a forklift, they can help us do this.
We've got the trash miata on the forklift
And once we get it upside down,
we're gonna drop it on that $65 roll bar.
And I think it's just gonna fold right over immediately.
- Safety first.
- All right boys, how the hell are we gonna do this?
- Well we're not quite sure.
- Nice.
- We haven't exactly figured that out yet.
- I like that. I like your style.
- We do have this forklift. We got some tires.
So first we're gonna get it on the roof
and since we have so much faith in that roll bar
We take it off so we don't scratch it and wreck it.
Get this thing in it's roof, lift it up
and then I heard you're gonna be the brave soul
to go under there and put it back in.
- That's right.
- That's your job.
- Came up with a cool little pulley system.
all right so I'll add some engineering effects to it.
- Nice. What revision is that?
How many stupid ideas did you have to--
- That's about the third revision.
- Yeah.
- Okay, sweet. Then I trust the third revision.
I think we're good here.
(machine drilling)
all right that should do it.
I think we're ready to get this thing in the air.
Drop it.
- All right so basically we gotta figure out
how to get this thing as stable as possible.
So we set the extended fork on top of the roof
so that we can kinda take
some of the load off of the forklift.
And this is gonna get attached to the bumper of my truck,
or the hitch on my truck. And we're gonna lift that car up.
So hopefully it works.
- Hell yeah hopefully we don't just pull this thing over.
- Yeah that's what we're worried about.
- It is a possibility.
(machine whirs)
- Oh boy, hang on, hang on, hang on, stop
We're moving the forklift.
- See it's starting to pull.
- Yeah.
(dramatic music)
- Oh boy!
- Oh God.
(loud thud)
- Thought that might happen.
(loud thud)
(indistinct yelling)
- (groans disappointingly)
Well we're gonna figure out
how to get this thing upright but--
- With a forklift.
- Yeah for real.
- Well it seems like your roll bar did a pretty good job.
- Remember when I said things might go sideways.
This is the sideways I meant.
- [Eddie] so what's the recovery plan here?
- Well we got the neighbor's forklift over here,
and we're gonna aim to keep that one upright.
So we're gonna use this to pick this up.
We're gonna tie Dylan's truck back to the forklift.
So when we lift this one up, if we do,
it doesn't just rock it over to the other side
and flip and crush whatever is over there.
- [Eddie] You ever seen a flipped forklift?
- Yeah, right here.
(upbeat music)
- Okay, we're not doing anything anymore.
(clapping)
- Good work all round
(upbeat music)
- Securing an anchor this time,
to the heaviest object that I have.
(indistinct background chatter)
(everybody laughs)
- It hasn't even like, hasn't even budged.
- Yeah this is a set up.
- All right plan number two worked.
The miata is suspended
and the forklift is upright, which is awesome.
So time to get your final answers in.
What do you think is gonna happen
when we drop this $65 roll bar.
I know what I think.
The only left to do is find out, so.
- All right wanna do the honors?
(saw buzzes)
- All right. Gonna see what happens.
Is everybody ready?
Everybody good?
All right.
(saw buzzes)
(loud thud)
(laughs)
That was sweet, and guess what?
I can see that roll bar is smashed in.
And so is the windshield I think.
(loud thud)
Dang!
(loud thud)
(everybody laughs)
- My boy, you're dead!
- [Dylan] His foot is in his ear hole.
- Oh my god, he's so flexible.
Well the roll bar bent forward
and smacked my guy right over the head, so that sucks.
It also, the windshield bent in half,
which kinda surprising.
(loud thud)
(laughs)
- That bracket bent the floor.
- Oh yeah.
- like this is terrible design.
Look at how it just pivoted like that.
- Just built to bend, baby.
- Straight in the ground--
- I mean I'm honestly surprised
that all four brackets are still intact.
- Yeah.
- Oh yeah the six bolts, it's really holding them together.
- I know I'm not surprised at all by this.
But the windshield, man!
This is bent right over.
Yeah seriously.
- Cage your miata, no matter what.
- Yeah seriously now I wanna (mumbling).
Yeah, hey, thank you guys for coming up
with a hilariously sketchy way to do this.
Really appreciate it.
- It was sketchy to the max at first.
- I love it.
- Clearly.
- You gotta find your max sketchiness and dial it back.
That's how I always operate.
- We certainly did.
- Good times boys.
- all right so thank you guys so much
for helping me with this.
Thank you guys for watching.
If you wanna see more of these guys ridiculous shenanigans,
check out Blackout on Gumout.
We'll throw a link in the description below.
Don't forget to subscribe to the channel.
And we'll see you guys next week.
(machine whirs)
- Thats a short car.
(metal clanks)