Here is my roll cage. There is still a bit of finishing work to be done such as the seat belt mounts at the top and some work in the fuel tank storage areas. The overall design was done first in wood in order to get the angles right and check all clearances above the seats for headroom.
All of the bars were designed after the shape of the roof when standard roof hoops are used. I am doing away with the fold down hoops but still wanted the general shape of the roof to be 'Moke'. The only compromise I had to make was at the rear of the Moke as my Moke is a four-seater. I needed to place the rear hoop farther back and vertical in order to have adequate head room. The seats are modified Miata (MX5) seats that will be able to recline and slide forward and backwards.
The rear bar retains the original Moke rear bar shape. The horizontal bar at the bottom provides some side-to-side stability. It will also have a bracket added in order to provide stability for the spare wheel mount. Using this chromoly .095 wall DOM tube, I will be able to pull the roof quite tight without any worry of flex in the tube (I'm hopfully done with the buffeting of the roof).
At the front of the cage we followed the lines of the widscreen and dash. The horizontal bar from side-to-side under the dash has been placed a little lower than the front edge of the dash so my new dash face will be able to fold forward for easy access to the wiring (thanks for that tip Moke Forum members).
At the top of the windscreen, the roll cage bars and the windscreen line up so there will be no 'hump' at the leading edge. I will also be adding some bolt-able tabs (brackets) between the cage and the windscreen so that they are essentially joined together. This way I can pull tightly on the roof for tension without the fear of buckling the windscreen.
And now for something completely different... Things may have gotten a little out of hand with the lower mounting points for the cage. I wanted the cage to be continuous around the Moke - both on top and underneath. I've also modified my Moke for twin tanks. The tubing within the side compartments is welded in place while the tubing under the wheel arches is removable as is everything on the top side of the Moke. There is still some finishing to be done in fuel tank areas. The 'bump' in the fuel tank area is to go around the side mount filler necks. The 'drop-down' tube connects to a tube that goes across the center of the car. The rear of the front seats also mount to this cross-tube. Under the front arches, the channel strengthening panel needed to be modified so the triangular mounting plate would fit in. The horizontal steel in the tank storage areas (under the top panel) is for mounting the fuel tanks.
Still more work to be done, but I think this cage has met all of my design criteria. A lot of inspiration was gained through the endless build pages on this forum. I will start my own build page in the future to help out the next batch of builders.