[chocflip201]

Originally Posted by spyder6

i personally would use 2-2.5 tubing for the strength. less than 2" seems kind of breakable

Originally Posted by 1 ton yj

Are you serious? That cage I posted that I used to run was 2" and it was overkill. Almost all cages and most tube chassis are made from 1.75" My new buggy is made from 1.5".

I have to pretty much agree with 1tonYJ. 2" for a roll bar or tube chassis is more gaudy, expensive, and IMHO very unappealing to the eye, and is overkill on strength as long as you have a good designed cage. I've seen one that was 2 1/4 and it was the worst thing I've ever seen, not to mention it was an exo-cage with way too many stupid tubes. 1.75 is plenty enough. (lots of people run 1 1/4 DOM with a good safe design and it works wonders.) I guess it pretty much depends on how you wheel and what you like. If you take it easy and drive your rig so that even if you roll over then it won't be a bad rollover you wont need a cage design as if you are someone who is planning on laying your rig on its roof multiple times, hard too, then you will want a little more structural design, which will increase cost. but all in all. 2" tube has proven itself plenty strong.

[spyder6]

fair enough, i myself dont have any fabrication skills or garage engineering to know anything about cages. like i said, ive just seen 1 roll over on a fabricated cage and it had to be replaced because it bent

[chocflip201]

Yeah understandable but realistically almost every cage will bend to some degree in the event of a rollover, it depends on how hard it was rolled, structural design of the cage, weather it has frame tie ins or not (because a cage, like a chain, is only as strong as its weakest link, in most cases, the body) and in every situation of use of the cage, it should be inspected at the joints, the tie in's and the tubes themselves. The sad thing is the stock jeep cages are only designed to safely support 1.5 times the weight of the vehicle, so realistically, if a jeep lands upside down with enough force to equal and surpass 1.5 times the weight of the jeep, it structurally wouldn't be sound.

[fratis]

although i agree with most of everything all have stated about cage tubing size i myself would like to build one out of 2". after building with the standard 1.75" D.O.M. it seems a bit small to me. i have to explain, im a minimalist in terms of design. i really dont care for cages you have to be a contortionist to get in and out of. i personally think that many people incorporate buggy design into their trail jeeps and go overboard with the tubing. i dont think they are keeping in mind how heavy all that triangulation up top really is until they try to lift it out. i find myself wanting to add to mine to make it look and feel more solid but im trying not to. 2" wouldnt be gaudy as the stock bars in a yj are 2 1/8" and the cj8 has even larger stock bars. ive seen some impressive yjs with very simple 2" cages on pirate and they looked great. i posted a thread quite some time back about stretching the body of my jeep. when i finish the project i will be building a new cage out of 2".

[1 ton yj]

Originally Posted by fratis

i personally think that many people incorporate buggy design into their trail jeeps and go overboard with the tubing.

I agree some have too much tube, but they usually have too much in the roof to try and compensate for not having anything behind the seats. All that does is waste tube and make it heavy. Mine posted above does not have any excessive tube, just what's necessary. It survived many hard rolls & flops, including a hard endo this summer that broke my frame in half and shook me up pretty good too. That cage is perfectly straight and my friend is putting it in his YJ this winter. The cage he is replacing has no lateral support and was tweaked to the side after one flop.

Squares fold, triangles hold.

[jason m]

i used mostly all 1.5'' .120 wall on mine. i cant even count now how many times ive been over or how many times ive driving on my bars ( on my side ). im sold on the 1.5 along with every body i wheel with, witch is mostly buggys now ( me in two years ).

i did this cage probally 5 years ago and added some to it from time to time but its held up great and yes its a PIA to get in and out of. but after watching my friend jim lambert crack two ribs last year from a roll were a rock came thru the door and punched him in the rib cage, im glad i have somthing there.

point is just look at what most do and you will see a pattern, i would say all most every cage is differnt but all most all use the same ideas for safty.

jason.

[Cbaughn]

That is one bad-*** looking Jeep man.

[dukegnarley]

Well the junk yard emailed me back. they're starting to part their '06 unlimited. I might get the cage, then add to it when i have more time/money. It depends on how much they want for it.

[dukegnarley]

I spent about 12 hours out in the lab last night. didn't get to bed until around 5am. Anyway, here's what i got done.



I got the wheel well and the circle for the fuel filler cut. I didn't cut into the wheel well yet because I'm waiting for my filler to show up in the mail. At this point i was kind of out of fun stuff to do so i decided to start on the paint.



i sanded the factory paint down so i could get some good adhesion, then i removed that Ugly chrome. Underneath the chrome the factory paint was in sad shape. it had runs in it as well as some pits. It took forever to sand it down.



To get to the bottom part of the grill i had to remove the winch. I figured it would just be a couple of bolts, but the PO apparently liked to use the power of welding to further the cause of Evil. The winch plate was welded to some adapters which were then bolted to the frame and welded to the bumper. I ground the welds down, and then found that one of the bolts was also welded to the winch plate. Anyway, after grinding some more i found that one of the bolts was broken off in the frame and another kind of fell in there.


Anyway, I'll deal with that crap later.



Apparently without the decals it's called a "JOOP"





I still have to paint the doors and the other crusher corner, but I've exhausted Ellensburg's supply of Krylon "Khaki".

after the jeep is out of the shop I will wash the under side of the wheel wells and paint them as well.

[JEEP97TJ]

Looking awesome, great work. Thanks for keeping us updated, always looking forward to more pictures.

[Godchsr]

You are a beast... multi tasking is a beeotch for me to do

[JaikYJ]

I still cant wait to see this done, I stop in this thread at least once a day to check out your progress.

[chadroc]

This has been fun to watch! It looks like you're doing really nice work. The only negative I can come up with....... I think your cheetos bag is going to melt. I'd use aluminum foil.
That's all! great work!

[SteveJcoYJ]

whats the situation with the cage?

[dukegnarley]

I should be picking up a factory LJ cage tomorrow. Next quarter is going to be pretty busy, so i won't have time to build my own cage. After I'm done with everything else i might come back and add some bracing to it.

There is a decent chance that the cheetos bag will melt... but in the worst case scenario, I buy another $7 light.