Roll bar

[da-beast]

Newbie here. I have read most of the postings and have found it to be a great help in deciding to buy a deuce. I will pick it up next month
With the massive size of the truck I am slightly worried about crashing. I cant find any information on a roll bar for the truck. I was reading from the military accident reports, that most people that bit the dust driving these had rolled the truck.
I was thinking besides updating the seat, belts, and steering wheel that I could add a roll bar. Maybe one designed for a farm tractor. Does anyone have any experience with adding one or have any better ideas? (besides not rolling the truck) The truck I plan to get will have a hard top. Would a cage be a better idea? I was leaning towards a bar since it would be less hassel to install.

 

[clinto]

I seem to remember reading that the Canadian M135/M211's had some kind of rollbar. I think I saw it on the GreenSix website, I will look tonight and see if it is still up.

 

[ken]

Mabye you could fab one up to fit in the bed. But rember most GI's driving these trucks are about 18 to 20 years old. Rember how fast you drove when you were that age? Espically if it wasen't your car? Keep it below 45 mph (some guys here run them 55mph) and don't sneek any curves up on it. And you will be fine. If someone is dumb enough to pull out in front of you, just run over them. It's not your foult they bought a jap tin can. "i'm kidding" serously, as with any vehicle espically one that weighes 13000#'s BE CAREFUL! Be sides with diesel at $1,000,000 a gal you won't drive it much!

 

[FSBruva]

ken-

Ain't that the truth!!!

But, is it really that easy to roll a deuce?!?!

 

[clinto]

OK, I definitely remember seeing the Canadian deuces on the Greensix website, but apprently it's long gone (RIP), I looked everywhere and all I found were broken links. Oh well.found it.
​

 

[Recovry4x4]

The Norwegian deuce of circa 1969 had a ROPS on the front of the bed. I'll see if I have some pics around here. M620 M621 were numbers for some of the Norway trucks. These trucks also had singles and air locking diffs in all 3 places. Perhaps the ultimate off road deuce in mil trim.

 

[Recovry4x4]

The Norwegian deuce of circa 1969 had a ROPS on the front of the bed. I'll see if I have some pics around here. M620 M621 were numbers for some of the Norway trucks. These trucks also had singles and air locking diffs in all 3 places. Perhaps the ultimate off road deuce in mil trim.

 

[rdixiemiller]

I would like some pics or drawings of the deuce ROPS. Most of the wrecked ones I have seen have gone over the top.
It would definately need to be heavy!

 

[GoHot229]

Well as you can see, this post started late in 2005....... well alot of time has passed and not much in the line of any threads addressing the roll bar for a Deuce application. Soooo....... has anybody come up with anything yet ? My Deuce is a hard-top which gives a false sence of security because it "SEEMS" as though you have something substantial around and over you, but we all know thats not the case. This last week I took off the top, which by the way is really not too dificult or timely to do, mabe 30 minuates or so, and while driving it around and into town, had an un-nerving feeling of aprehension driving it. I know the top is like tin-foil if I roll, but somehow I seemed to feel safer. My question is: has somebody out there put some roll bar on a Deuce? something that came off of some-or-other pick up truck or jeep or...?......... Something you had laying around from whenever you had some pu or some thing. I also wonder if something like a double tube pu type bar would have the nuggets to hold in a roll-over, and would it look anywhere like it was made to fit? Well I'v looked at tractor type roll-over bars, but they simply are too narrow and unlikely to work well enough for my taste. It's not nessesary to be a military piece, just some source of safety that comes close to fitting to the outer sides of the Deuce bed.

 

[wreckerman893]

Unless you are carrying a very top heavy load or attempting to negotiage a very steep angle sideways you are not in danger of rolling a deuce.
I was in the Army over thirty years and never had a roll over in any unit I was in.
The ones we did read or hear about were almost always driver error...too fast for conditions or driving improperly.
The far most likely scenario would be running off the road at a high embankment (front tire blow out or evasive manuver) and rolling it that way.
In a rollover the best defense it to have your seatbelt fastened......that will keep your noggin out of the crush zone.
If a roll bar gives you peace of mind by all means install one.
It would have to be constructed of heavy material and securely mounted.

 

[dk8019]

You could buy a M109, that might be cheap form of ROPS.

 

[rideni]

Make sure to make it to spec else it can be more deadly then not having one

 

[jesusgatos]

I've thought a bit about this. In addition to putting rollcages in all of my off-road vehicles, I'm the type of person that would put a rollcage in a sedan, minivan, or just about anything else on four wheels. Think about the fantastic crashes we've seen racecar drivers walk away from, and then consider how many people die in relatively low-speed traffic accidents. Most of the cars on the road aren't nearly as safe as they could be. But building a race-quality rollcage is EXPENSIVE ($3-5,000 minimum) and most people don't want to deal with the inconvenience. Personally, I don't want to go out like that. This is my daily-driver. I built that rollcage to survive cartwheeling through the desert at 80mph+, so I feel pretty safe in that truck on the road.

I feel pretty safe in Mah Deuce too though. Like Ken and wreckerman have already pointed out, we're not too likely to roll these vehicles if we drive them responsibly. But it's the blowout, or the brake failure, or some other catastrophic mechanical failure that I worry about most. I'm also concerned about the real possibility of a low-speed flop off-road. I drive an M109 and I can see myself getting my truck in a situation where that's a possibility. I think the height of the box on my truck will protect me in most cases, but well, I have all the tools and the ability to build a nice rollcage.

So I'm planning to build an four-point, in-cab rollcage for Mah Deuce. I'll probably use 2" x .135-wall DOM tubing (because that's the largest die-set that I have/can get for my bender). I'm going to run tubes along the floor, around the perimeter of the cab. This will serve as the foundation for the rollcage, because I don't want to tie the rollcage into the frame (because the cab is not rigidly mounted to the frame). The seats will be mounted to this tubework on the floor, and the whole point is to anchor the rollcage to the cab in such a way that it will not just punch through the sheetmetal on impact. Then I'll build a simple hoop that follows the windshield frame, and another hoop at the B-pillar (in the rear corners of the cab, behind the driver/pass). I'll triangulate that B-pillar hoop somehow, and same thing goes for the overhead bars that connect the front/back hoops. There is plenty of room in these trucks to build something like what I'm talking about in such a way as to not be intrusive to the driver/passengers.

Whenever I get around to designing/building this, I'll post blueprints (SolidWorks & BendTech Pro) to share with everyone. But this is really a pretty simple project. If you don't have the tools and the know-how, any competent fab shop should be able to build a nice cage like this for $1500+-.

Here's the thing though: I wouldn't expect a rollcage as simple as what I'm proposing to offer much in the way of real protection in an a high-speed roll, and I wouldn't be surprised to see it to get seriously deformed/damaged in a low-speed/off-road flop. Little more peace-of-mind than a hard/soft top though...

Installing a headache rack or Smittybuilt-type bed bar isn't going to cut it. BUT, I think that building a heavy-****ing-duty version of something similar specifically for our trucks would be a really good idea. I can see something like that doing even better in a crash than the rollcage I'm planning on building, because it could be triangulated in ways that wouldn't be practical inside the cab of these trucks. It wouldn't keep the cab from getting crushed, but if it holds up, it might keep the cab from flattening at the rear (you know, where our heads are). Tubing-wise, I'd go big. Find a shop that can bend 3"+ tubing. You'd only need four bends in one piece of tubing. Shouldn't be too expensive.

If anyone wants to build a rollcage/rollbar for their truck, I'll help with the design.*
*As long as you understand that I'm just a designer/fabricator, not an engineer. I can't/won't make any claims as to the safety of anything being discussed here.

 

[DirtMagnet]

I have similar plans. I do not however have yor CAD skills(The Spinner mount looked Pro). By the way how is that thing?Model 960 if memory serves. I'm in the market for one.

 

[jesusgatos]

Ah, you don't need CAD skills to build a good rollcage. You just need to know what you're doing. The only reason I was thinking that it might be cool to post CAD blueprint to share, would be so that people could download them and have local fabricators bend tubing (since not many people have tubing benders). That would make building your own cage a DIY project for anyone that can notch tubes and weld.

 

[jesusgatos]

Oh, and thanks. I haven't had the parts to make that oil filter mount cut yet

 

[KaiserM109]

I was talking to a guy Saturday who was the sole survivor out of 14 in a deuce roleover during training in the late '50. He was hospitalized for 6 months with 42 fractures.

Whatever you decide to do, start out by following Ken's advice. An ROPS might be real nice.

 

[Unforgiven]

What about an external roll cage? I was pondering what size to use for an external cage. 3" or 4" square tubing for the A & B pillars, 3/16-1/4 thick. Then over the roof maybe 1/8" thick, forming a sort of roof-rack-roll-cage. Modular with the roof rack bolted securely to the A & B pillars that are, in turn, bolted to the frame. It could be assembled and dismantled in sections. It would be heavy. But this is a heavy truck. A roll frame would have to be correspondingly larger to offer rollover protection.

DOM would be lighter, but I think square or rectangular would look better. Almost like an overhead crane hoist that bolts together in pieces.

Has anyone actually built a roll cage for this truck? I'd love to see pics.

 

[Jakob]

4x4 tubing with 1/4" would be bare minimum IMO. If a deuce goes over, there is a ton (well, several really) of momentum... even if it's a slow roll over. Be sure that your head will be below the imaginary line from the top of the ROPS to the top, front point of the engine. If you don't have a good seat belt, a ROPS will be pointless anyway.

 

[tm america]

a roll bar would be nice. but a triangulated system would be more along the lines of what would be needed to hold up to the forces at hand.i would probably go with a 5x2 5/16 wall tube for the hoop. and 3x2 5/16 for the support legs . i would gusset the corners with 3/8 plate also you would have to suppore it under the bed with equally strong set up.good looks and strength are going to be hard to fit together in this situation.since you would be counting on a roll bar to do the work a roll cage should be doing.all in all .it is gonna have it's limits no matter what you go with . decide what you need it to do for you have an engineer design it and have a certified welder make it if not the risk is all yours.