Dan, the bracket that ties the cage to the A pillar, is there a reason you didn't do it to the B, C, and D pillars? Just wondering.
Well, I hate to sound like a poser, but I pretty much pointed out every detail that I saw looking cool and beefy on every race truck or sick prerunner. I spent countless hours online looking at other peoples cages and then took those attributes to my project. I then worked those into my design (even though this truck was professionally caged by a guy who has done this for 10 years, he aked my input and said it was one of the most overbuilt cages, but right on par for the pictures he saw of my truck flying through the air).
One detail you will see on the b and c pillar is that it captures the factory seat belt upper bolt with a tab. This will help keep the cage and body together. I begged John to build me plates on the D-pillar that were similar to the a-pillar plates, but time was running out. I still think it would be easy to do. If you recall my rear bars bent around in the way they do so I can cut through the rear hatch for a stinger style rear bumper.
All B.S. aside, I don't plan on having any type of a rollover, but I'm guessing that if I do rollover it won't be slow rockcrawler, it will be high speed nose digging into a whoop or coming off a hill at the wrong angle. I spent a little extra time and money thinking that I will be able to salvage this truck forever. Looking back at the McNeil endo, that truck had no D-pillar protection, the rest of the truck however stayed in tact fairly well.
If I have a slow rollover, it means that I may even save the windshield with the a-pillar supports from nothing more than a crack. I chose to sacrifice all interior in order to put my cage out as far as possible. I figure it's a 18 year old truck and the old school blue needed to go. I love the new look, very rugged, very easy to clean and disassemble. Taking note to the side bracing on the doors, I honestly believe that truck will stay in pretty decent shape, whether I get t-boned, lay it on the side or roll it end over end. Looking at the accidents you see in NASCAR it's incredible that these guys walk away from that but those cages are designed to cradle them tight. Now I will be wearing no safety gear or helmet (unless I do whiplash offroad), and will be traveling at 1/3 the speed of a nascar crash I should be in good shape. I have very little areas of the truck that can collapse more than 1" without it gettting into the cage. I built this with the plan of going to the junkyard with a sawzall and a socket set to return home with whatever body panels would need to be welded into place to repair it. I think the totals were somewhere around 130' of tubing in the truck. The only places where I would have added more tube but did not see necessary were diagonal supports through the rear passengers harness bar(but the rear suspension 2' behind go to the roof) and a full "X" through the front seats harness bar(but that would have killed all leg room for the rear seats).
Dare I say that a future build for this truck has already been considered after I enjoy it like this for a while. I needed suspension to keep up with my engine, now I need an engine to keep up with my suspension and then go back to suspension. Lets just say 3 link, 23 gal fuel cell, v8, doubler, continue the cage through the firewall to the front bumper and 1/2 ton running gear have already been discussed.