Another penthouse bolt track issue!

[BroncoHauler]

Does it make sense to sleeve the holes going through the bars? Don't know if there's enough margin in the width of the bars.


Herb

[boywonder]

Originally Posted by BroncoHauler

Does it make sense to sleeve the holes going through the bars? Don't know if there's enough margin in the width of the bars.


Herb

Interesting idea......perhaps if you could weld the sleeves...that way you are assured that the sleeves won't rotate inside the tubes and you will get a little strength back.

Cro-mo tubing slipped inside the existing crossbars does two things.....it strengthens the crossbars from bending and increases the bearing area for the pivot bolts.

[daveb]

So is it the electric top that has the Chrome Molly inserts or did SMB just start installing them after a certain year? I know I have them on my 06.

[boywonder]

Originally Posted by daveb

So is it the electric top that has the Chrome Molly inserts or did SMB just start installing them after a certain year? I know I have them on my 06.

I have no idea.....I stuck them in my crossbars DIY......

I would think that SMB would just make the crossbars out of cro-mo and perhaps increase the wall thickness a bit......do a little engineering.....your sleeves are stock from SMB?

[BroncoHauler]

Originally Posted by boywonder

I have no idea.....I stuck them in my crossbars DIY......

I would think that SMB would just make the crossbars out of cro-mo and perhaps increase the wall thickness a bit......do a little engineering.....your sleeves are stock from SMB?

IIRC, I do not think my '06 had Chromoly inserts. I could be mistaken. I do think SMB just making the tubes out of Chromoly is the way to go. They should at least offer it as an upgrade.


Herb

[soaringhawk]

I wonder if it would be possible to have someone make up a co-mo set of bars. Cost prohibitive?

I've finished up the first side with the 1/4" shoulder screws. What a job! I had to pull the fridge to get to the rear bolt.

My thinking was that it's the bolts that fail not the bars. I got full bearing on the shoulder screws for all the bars. Does anyone know of any bars that have failed?

Terry

[boywonder]

Originally Posted by soaringhawk

Does anyone know of any bars that have failed?

Terry

Well, yours have.....they are not supposed to be bent........

[soaringhawk]

Got a good chuckle from that! Let me re-word that. I guess I was wondering about a catastrophic failure that would cause the roof to drop like a snapped bolt would do. If it continues to bend slowly over time....... I'm still fast enough to get out of the way.

[boywonder]

Yes, a few folks here have had the pivot bolts break. Since it's on one side the roof lists over and it can be difficult to get the roof back down.

If both pivot bolts broke simultaneously that would be a much bigger concern but that's unlikely.

[ShuttlePilot]

Just to share first hand experience and confirm what boywonder said. I have had one pivot bolt shear off a few years back. It popped just as I released the hold up bars transferring the weight of the roof onto the hoop bars/springs. The roof just shifted to one side a bit and dropped an inch or two. The difficult part was trying to get the roof down. I would have thought it would have been easier to lower or even crash to the bottom when broken but it was quite the opposite for some geometry reason. So my experience is broken pivot bolt doesn't equal death. That said I sleep better with the hold up bars deployed. Oh and it is a regular top not electric.

Also, My van is an 05' but it was converted at SMBWest in early 06' and it dose not seem to have cro mo bars or any type of insert. Yes, my bars have a slight bend in them.

- Eric