Heavyweight Sill Replacements

[berni29]

Hi There

I have been removing my old sills. What a nightmare. I have spyder replacements, which seem a little on the heavy and on the over engineered side. Any modern cars bumper is going to be at hip height at least, and miss the sidebar completely, so from an impact point of view it seems like overkill. As far as stiffening, they are certainly stiffer than the standard items but in practice I doubt if they make a difference. The real plus is that they are well galvanised, and truly fit and forget.

They two of them must weigh at least 20kg more than the standard ones. Is it possible to get galvanised standard replacements? Is there a lighter (than the spyder) alternative?

Berni

[Foxie]

Hi Berni

Any chance you could stick them on the bathroom scales and tell us more exactly what they weigh (each )

I agree that for side impact protection they are not optimally positioned, but they do make the body stronger than an eggshell in the event of an impact or rollover.

It can help if you think of a Lotus as a motorcycle with four wheeels )

I have fabricated a roll bar for my Plus 2 (there being nothing available off the shelf) which bolts to the middle and rear sill anchor plates, as well as to the rear turrets.

Sean Murray

[berni29]

Hi

The roll bar sounds like a good idea. Does it take up much space? I need the back seats for the kids (occasionally). I will weigh the spyder sills. It will have to be tomorrow though.

I imagine that the cars are not good in a side impact. I drove my previous plus 2 straight on into a slate faced emabankment and the fiberglass smashed right up to the front wheels. I didn't feel much of an impact (or the wife), but there wasn't half a big bang.

Berni

[Foxie]

Hi Berni,

The roll bar is an Aleybar Mark II Escort rear cage conversion. The roll hoop itself fits snugly along the door pillars, and would leave the rear seats usable. However, if you use the cross brace and two struts tying into the rear turrets, the seats will have to go into the attic. However this makes the car feel tremendously solid and safe. I did this to comply with FIA regulations for Historic Rally/Race.
I made up two lockers from plywood which fit into the seat space each side of the tunnel, and a full width lid, it's quite neat if I may say so.

I also had to make up an aluminium firewall across the rear seat area and back over the top of the fuel tank space to the base of the rear screen. The fuel tank now comes out the back if I need to take the diff out.

I'll send you some pics off list. Hope to have my website up and running shortly.

Sean

[berni29]

Hi Sean

I would be very interested in seeing how that all looks. Many thanks! Good luck with the website. I am about to update mine with some nightmare body sill pictures.

Berni