It can be done!

I have spent countless hours trying to get the L322 bullbar movement happening (Check out the "bullbar development" thread) I have approached every manufacture, large and small about getting one put into production. 90% of the time its a flat out no there just isn't a big enough market (Despite my explanation that one bar would cover 10 years of production and they would be the only people in the world to build one), the other 5% is yes but we need at least 10 deposits down before we can even design one or a yes (By Xrox in Perth, and lets be honest they would look like crap on a RR)

I took it to the point of manufacturing them myself and gaining airbag compliance that way, the construction and the design in terms of being ADR compatible (Shape and pedestrian safety) is the easy peasy part, the larger costs come into the crash testing obviously.
I have spoken with the engineers that actually give a report, that you then submit to Vicroads or whatever governing state you are in to say that it has been tested and the deceleration rates of the new bar is within a certain tolerance of the existing manufactures' bar. No engineer will approve without one of these reports.

The actual crash test doesn't involve a full sized car at all, it requires the existing crash bumper (metal bit behind the plastic bumper) and 2 prototypes of the new bar to be installed (one for a high speed and one for a low speed impact) The cost to run the sled and the sensors and gain possession of a report, excluding the costs of the 3 bumpers is around $9k with then the engineering approval costs of the state approved engineers.

So to round it all up, we can have one but it will look like ****
we can have one if everyone wants to pay for it without seeing exactly what it will look like
Or we done have one and we go with my new plan of rear mounting a winch...with no front protection still

OT but perhaps relevant to the cause: I know of a new Jeep GC that will be off the road for at least 6 more weeks awaiting a replacement radiator support bracket from the US after an encounter with a roo.

Two separate issues.......one is the concept of production and the other is a one off for a single car. I know this stuff inside out from my Porsche experience and you can do all sorts of stuff on a one off basis.......not easily, granted, but can do.

Production issues are all together different and so much more complex that it is incalculable. Rules and regs and traceable responsibility are what production is all about and this is the issue with asking any of the major manufacturers to build a bar for retail sales. They not only have to deal with liability insurance but you have the many and varied rules and regulations across the world, ADR's, TUV, U.S. state rules and so on.

Don't reckon the l322 bar will ever go into production as it would have needed to do so in around 2008 so as to pick up the previous models and the yet to be sold ones. The manufacturers would have spoken to Land Rover about model life and variations and would have been told the answers honestly. Moons ago, I owned one of Austalia's major bar manufacturing companies and we regularly spoke to car companies about life spans, model variants, new engines, suspensions and so on so that we could develop new products and keep their products relevant to the market.

As a one off, all things are possible.......it's a matter of time and money, nothing more and nothing less!

Just my thoughts and ramblings.......nothing personal meant.

For the NSW 2 year exemption period it appears that if the ARB D3/D4 bar was fitted by an owner then an exemption could be expected to be granted. It would be preferable if ARB could supply appropriate brackets but maybe the one in the picture was owner-fitted and has owner-manufactured brackets. With the ARB stickers prominent on that vehicle, perhaps there is an ARB branch that fits the bars on a 1-off basis and assists in obtaining or provides the exemption. This will be my approach once I have my vehicle unless a specific L322 bar is being developed that has frontal protection, not just somewhere to mount lights and a winch.

The washer jets for the bi-xenon headlights would need to be aimed appropriately.

I've given up on a front bar.......too damn hard and I've now figured out some interesting aerial and led brackets. More to come on those. A momentary lack of concentration on the weekend has turned my focus to a rear bar. The insurance company have agreed to meet the cost if the bar complies. Not sure if it will go ahead but the car is with the engineer now to see about compliance.

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Originally Posted by RR44TDV8

I've given up on a front bar.......too damn hard and I've now figured out some interesting aerial and led brackets. More to come on those. A momentary lack of concentration on the weekend has turned my focus to a rear bar. The insurance company have agreed to meet the cost if the bar complies. Not sure if it will go ahead but the car is with the engineer now to see about compliance.

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What happened?

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Originally Posted by RR44TDV8

I've given up on a front bar.......too damn hard and I've now figured out some interesting aerial and led brackets. More to come on those. A momentary lack of concentration on the weekend has turned my focus to a rear bar. The insurance company have agreed to meet the cost if the bar complies. Not sure if it will go ahead but the car is with the engineer now to see about compliance.

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Almost anything can be done with a rear bar, basically as long as you cant cut someones leg off when driving past and the lights are visible.

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Originally Posted by rar110

What happened?

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I really want to tell you I was all twisted up with a wheel 3 feet in the air squeezing between two house sized boulders in the rain and struggling through slimy clay mud two feet deep and I clipped one of the boulders but really I backed into a concrete bollard in an underground car park. I could have listened to the parking sensors or looked at the reversing camera screen but I didn't! Let's just put this one down to unbridled stupidity and move on!:confused:

I started wondering if the chassis behind the bumper reinforcement mounting points are strong enough to sustain a roo hit on a bar directly mounted to the reinforcement mounts, considering that from memory my previous D4's alloy ECB bar is bolted directly to the chassis. However I spotted that the ARB D3/D4 bars are bolted to a deformable bracket so possible lack of chassis strength should not be an issue. A decent impact on the original reinforcement bar would take its toll on the chassis rails anyway but would not want a higher-up but lighter impact on a bullbar to damage the rails.

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Originally Posted by Graeme

I started wondering if the chassis behind the bumper reinforcement mounting points are strong enough to sustain a roo hit on a bar directly mounted to the reinforcement mounts, considering that from memory my previous D4's alloy ECB bar is bolted directly to the chassis. However I spotted that the ARB D3/D4 bars are bolted to a deformable bracket so possible lack of chassis strength should not be an issue. A decent impact on the original reinforcement bar would take its toll on the chassis rails anyway but would not want a higher-up but lighter impact on a bullbar to damage the rails.

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It would be illegal to mount a solid bar to the front of any car with airbags.
The deformation rate (crumple speed) of the original metal bumper, must be matched within a degree of tolerance to satisfy the requirements for airbag certification. If a solid bar was mounted, the energy would be transferred to the chassis crumple zones and in-turn could set off the air bags at lower speeds than intended.