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If I'm following you rightly, you'd be more likely to break it with a u-bolt then without one. The fender pads on the axle trumpet are flat surfaced, and are flat surfaced underneath the exle for mounting the sway bars. A u-bolt would impart a sharp load on the inner edge of the hole, and not distribute the load like a mounting bracket would. The axle trumpet failure pictures I saw some time ago had the entire mounting pad ripped out of the axle trumpets. The mounting pad didn't break its ears off, the entire area of the axle trumpet was missing, with many of the axle trumpets being completely broken apart. This is why there is such a question about the graduate student modifications to the mounting. It is rather doubtfull it's simply a change in the way it attaches to the fender mount pad, since that joint didn't fail. It would have to extend beyond that. And none of us have ever been able to find out exactly what it is. I have seen the recently posted pictures of a ROPS from Safety-Cab. It will probably work adequately on a sideway roll over, once. On a rearward roll over, it's nothing more then a crowbar bolted onto the axle pad. The single weld on the bottom and the minimal footprint it has are adequate for a four point cab, which this company normally makes. But quite inadequate for a simple, unreinforced hoop. To put it another way, if you tried to show up at a track to race with that as your roll bar, you would be immediately disqualified and prohibited from driving on the track. I can't think of any sanctioning body that would allow a roll bar that poorly engineered to be on a vehicle, for good reason. It is quite inadequate for the job. If you want to make your ROPS at all decent, start with a four point cage if you can. That is the most effective. If you can't live with that, and must have a single hoop, then at least incorporate brackets and trusses that will distribute the load better and will reinforce the hoop fore and aft so that it has a chance of staying attached if you flip the tractor over backwards. That's why the crash bars on trucks and the single hoop roll bars on sports cars are triangulated. They simply snap off if they are not. And do not ever go drilling into a ROPS, a roll cage, or a roll bar, to mount lights and such. Weld on tabs and brackets if you must have them and are competent, or else use non-scaring clamp on brackets. Serrated clamps that scar the metal create high stress spots and greatly increase the likelyhood of the unit failing in use. It's just like scoring glass to break it. Which is why it's prohibited by race sanctioning bodies. For what it's worth, from what little I've seen, the only ROPS I'd consider mounting on my 8N is one I'd build myself, or have built by a racing shop. I shudder at what I see being sold as a ROPS for these old tractors.
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