Heavy Duty Hoodsticks

The Series 3 is, like so many other Land Rovers, a bit schitzophrenic.. it can never really decide what to be.   Sometimes it's a hardtop, sometimes it's a soft-top.   Due to the recent spell of nice weather, it's currently a soft-top.   

Now, in my reckless youth I didn't worry so much about things like safety, but being a reponsible adult now means that I have to at least give it a nod of acknowlegdement.

Now, my 3 year old son has never been in my Series 3 (aside from pretending to drive it to the beach whilst it was sitting on the drive), so I promised him that once it was working again, we could drive to the beach for real.   It was this that made me think I should probably provide a bit of protection for the passengers in the event that anything untoward happened, and decided to look at uprating the hoodsticks a bit.

The guys up at Protection and Performance did me a cracking deal on a couple of CDS hoops, made to the same shape / dimensions as the standard parts, along with a couple of bits of tube.
They make the hoops for their NAS spec 90 cages, so those bits were off-the-shelf.



A bit of careful measuring, and some tube notching got the basic frame assembled on the vehicle



Then it was a case of taking the whole thing off and welding it up properly.



The new hoops give a decent point for an upper seat belt mount as well, so I took the opportunity to add these at the same time.





As this is written, the new hoops are off the vehicle again, with a coat of primer on them.   A couple of coats of paint and they'll be fitted for good.