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Heretic Car Camper
It goes back a little further than that. At least one of the std Stroppe EB racers was fitted with such a system prior to Big Oly getting it. A friend in AZ is 1/2 owner of that EB and it is slowly being returned to it's vintage race fitment and condition.That was a Bill Strope set up, found on PJ's Big Oly Broncos and Manny Esquerra's Rangers. Someone made a fiberglass insert at some point but I haven't seen one in years. The electric actuated ones are very nice for adjusting lights at speed, and has become standard on high end race cars. Morphic and Baja Concepts(Soltek) make kits.Okay I didn't even search for this but in the mid Baja 1000 days one of the famous racers who ran broncos and always won had a great system for lights that had a ratacthing interior handle in his roof that either put up his light bar or folded it down.....if you guys don't find it I'll try to when I have time....must of been early 80's maybe....the lights had indents in the roof to nest in.
It is not a ratchet on that truck, it is a semi-circular guide and the handle screws down to pinch the guide and lock the setting in place. The whole system would not work well on a vehicle whose roof is highly valued.......
On a friend's race truck I copied the design of my then crew chief for LocosMocos.com and used a fixed stop combined with 2 gas springs. That way any branches that might hurt the lights would instead deflect the whole light bar, and the once clear the gas springs will return the lights to their full, upright position. I used a De-Sta-co clamp to hold the lights in the retracted position. Popping the clamp loose allows the gas springs to erect the light bar.
