By Gil Stevens (Gil) on Wednesday, May 16, 2001 - 09:03 am: Edit

Not long ago I had chance to drive a 1994 Camel Trophy Disco while at LRU. The interior cage in this rig was sick. It is made by Safety Devices and it goes thru the corner dash vents to the floor. My question is this, isnt that redundant as Discos already have a "rollcage" built into the structure of the vehicle? Safety Devices sells the cage for about 500 pounds, but it is it really something that you would need? Is the internal cage not all that strong? any opinions?

By Ron on Wednesday, May 16, 2001 - 09:24 am: Edit

Gil,

My somewhat limited understanding was that the internal roll cage served two functions.

1. To act as a roll cage
2. To reinforce the mounts for the roof rack so it could bear more weight.

As far a 1. I guess you can never have to much roll cage, but I think the reason it was included is that Britian has a requirement for "full rollover protection" or some such nonsense that applies to certian commercial vehicle applications. Whether the disco meets this stock or not I don't know, but in CT with a ton of extra gear the roll cage was probably a good idea. In the pics of discos rolled I have seen they have faired quite well so it was probably as much for point 2. as point 1. It is somewhat common practice to reinforce roof rack mounts with tie in to the vehicle's structure when heavy loads are expected to be carries up there (you will see diagonal bars to the rear tub on most brownchurch racks on expedition series and defenders). Finally make sure the roll cage will even fit in an NAS rover and also I am guessing the main cost will be instalation as much as the cage itself.

Cheers
Ron