Wrapped this up recently, so thought I'd share my install experience in case it helps anyone. Keep in mind that I've got the stealth epoxy version of the bar, so some things might be different to the other variants. Things like where to cut exactly, the epoxy steps if you've got a weld in version, etc. The general process is the same though, so should still be relevant.
Copy pasted this from my journal so let me know if you have any questions or if I missed something.
I first drilled up through the subframe mounts with the supplied drill bit. This allowed me to see where the bar would sit and mark out the outline for the cut:
I bought that small battery-powered dremel in hopes that it would help getting into the tighter spaces around the chassis rails. The thing works fine, but it's got this super annoying anti-stall feature where it will stop the motor and require you to turn it off and on if it senses that the tool might stall. Not intrusive when the battery is at 100%, but as soon as it gets a bit low, the tools cuts out constantly. Ended up cutting almost everything out with a cutoff wheel on an angle grinder.
I decided to cut rather close to the contour of the bar because I wouldn't have to worry about hitting the sheet metal below/behind the trunk floor. Not sure if this path would work with the simplified Vincebar, but since I've got the stealth version, it worked out fine. Masked everything off (definitely a bit overkill with the cardboard, but I really wanted to avoid messing up my interior) and got to cutting:
I ended up not following the line I made exactly because I realized that the front didn't need as much clearance as I had originally thought.
Dry fitted the bar next. Wasn't entirely sure what to do with the little sheet metal ledge on the rear of the bar (pointing towards the front of the car) and could not find any information or pictures about this anywhere. Reached out to timmo and decided to tuck it in between the two layers of sheet metal on the car. Had to pry up the top layer slightly to get the bar to fit easily, but everything lined up great after that.
I wrapped a strong Neodymium in a plastic bag (to make clean up easier) and placed it in the path of any chips that were flying off the cutting tools. It helped reduce the mess greatly. Here's what it looked like after all the cutting. Pretty cool that the shavings line up to take the shape of the magnetic field:
Next were the front mounts. Made myself a little dust cave with a plastic drop cloth because I was paranoid of messing up my interior.
Drilled up through the mounts to get a guide hole for the hole saw, cut out the hole and filed/dremeled the edges until the gusset cups fit, wire wheeled the sound deadening, ground down the spot welds on the bottom, contoured the plates to the panel with a hammer and drilled all the holes for the rivets. Fortunately found no cracks in the welds, so didn't have to deal with that.
Next came the epoxy prep. Wire wheeled and scuffed all the surfaces that were being epoxied and then applied some POR-15 metal prep onto them. Decided to epoxy the bottom of the bar to the reinforcement plates (the ones that go above the T shaped welds) right under where the bolts go, so I took off the powder coat and prepped that area as well.
Guess I forgot to take pictures of the rear mount prep, but I basically laid everything in dry, bolted it down and drilled all the rivet holes. Was super careful on the passenger's side chassis rail since there's a fuel line that runs through there. I measured how far I wanted to drill and the put a combination of sockets and nuts around the drill bit to physically stop it from going any further than I wanted it to. As far as rivet placement, the longer ones go towards the rear of the car and the shorter ones go in the holes closer to the front of the car (because of the fuel line). With all the holes drilled and the metal prepped, I applied the epoxy to all the surfaces that needed it.
Thought it wasn't enough so I added a second layer.
Then placed and riveted everything in. Used a regular hand riveter (non-hydraulic) and while some of the bigger rivets were definitely hard to break off, it wasn't that big of a problem.
Left it curing for about five hours and then went in to crack the bolts loose. Retightened them immediately after, but I just wanted to make sure that they didn't get epoxied as well. Left everything to cure for a couple days while I did everything else I was going to do.
I used Araldite 2014 A/B epoxy and applied it at an ambient temp of around 20C. Referred to the adhesive's datasheet to get the curing times, as well as the thickness I should be aiming for with everything riveted in: http://www.adhesivehelp.com/productd...sman-a2014.pdf
Left it to cure for about two days before going in and applying a layer of POR-15 on every bit of exposed metal I could see. Still have to work on fabricating the cover for the bar and painting everything to match (including all the scuffed up surfaces on the chassis rails in the trunk and such).
Copy pasted this from my journal so let me know if you have any questions or if I missed something.
I first drilled up through the subframe mounts with the supplied drill bit. This allowed me to see where the bar would sit and mark out the outline for the cut:
I bought that small battery-powered dremel in hopes that it would help getting into the tighter spaces around the chassis rails. The thing works fine, but it's got this super annoying anti-stall feature where it will stop the motor and require you to turn it off and on if it senses that the tool might stall. Not intrusive when the battery is at 100%, but as soon as it gets a bit low, the tools cuts out constantly. Ended up cutting almost everything out with a cutoff wheel on an angle grinder.
I decided to cut rather close to the contour of the bar because I wouldn't have to worry about hitting the sheet metal below/behind the trunk floor. Not sure if this path would work with the simplified Vincebar, but since I've got the stealth version, it worked out fine. Masked everything off (definitely a bit overkill with the cardboard, but I really wanted to avoid messing up my interior) and got to cutting:
I ended up not following the line I made exactly because I realized that the front didn't need as much clearance as I had originally thought.
Dry fitted the bar next. Wasn't entirely sure what to do with the little sheet metal ledge on the rear of the bar (pointing towards the front of the car) and could not find any information or pictures about this anywhere. Reached out to timmo and decided to tuck it in between the two layers of sheet metal on the car. Had to pry up the top layer slightly to get the bar to fit easily, but everything lined up great after that.
I wrapped a strong Neodymium in a plastic bag (to make clean up easier) and placed it in the path of any chips that were flying off the cutting tools. It helped reduce the mess greatly. Here's what it looked like after all the cutting. Pretty cool that the shavings line up to take the shape of the magnetic field:
Next were the front mounts. Made myself a little dust cave with a plastic drop cloth because I was paranoid of messing up my interior.
Drilled up through the mounts to get a guide hole for the hole saw, cut out the hole and filed/dremeled the edges until the gusset cups fit, wire wheeled the sound deadening, ground down the spot welds on the bottom, contoured the plates to the panel with a hammer and drilled all the holes for the rivets. Fortunately found no cracks in the welds, so didn't have to deal with that.
Next came the epoxy prep. Wire wheeled and scuffed all the surfaces that were being epoxied and then applied some POR-15 metal prep onto them. Decided to epoxy the bottom of the bar to the reinforcement plates (the ones that go above the T shaped welds) right under where the bolts go, so I took off the powder coat and prepped that area as well.
Guess I forgot to take pictures of the rear mount prep, but I basically laid everything in dry, bolted it down and drilled all the rivet holes. Was super careful on the passenger's side chassis rail since there's a fuel line that runs through there. I measured how far I wanted to drill and the put a combination of sockets and nuts around the drill bit to physically stop it from going any further than I wanted it to. As far as rivet placement, the longer ones go towards the rear of the car and the shorter ones go in the holes closer to the front of the car (because of the fuel line). With all the holes drilled and the metal prepped, I applied the epoxy to all the surfaces that needed it.
Thought it wasn't enough so I added a second layer.
Then placed and riveted everything in. Used a regular hand riveter (non-hydraulic) and while some of the bigger rivets were definitely hard to break off, it wasn't that big of a problem.
Left it curing for about five hours and then went in to crack the bolts loose. Retightened them immediately after, but I just wanted to make sure that they didn't get epoxied as well. Left everything to cure for a couple days while I did everything else I was going to do.
I used Araldite 2014 A/B epoxy and applied it at an ambient temp of around 20C. Referred to the adhesive's datasheet to get the curing times, as well as the thickness I should be aiming for with everything riveted in: http://www.adhesivehelp.com/productd...sman-a2014.pdf
Left it to cure for about two days before going in and applying a layer of POR-15 on every bit of exposed metal I could see. Still have to work on fabricating the cover for the bar and painting everything to match (including all the scuffed up surfaces on the chassis rails in the trunk and such).
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