The 4.0 Swap was chump change compared to this - Look inside...

[rookieshooter]

Might make for a good place to attach the rear roll bar piece. Just cut through bed and weld directly on top of rect. tube.

 

[janderson4010]

Might make for a good place to attach the rear roll bar piece. Just cut through bed and weld directly on top of rect. tube.

thats the plan, the front pillar will follow the roof and windsheild line, then dive inside the fender and down to the slider, as shown here

and on the back the b pillar will be fully inside the vehicle, its going to be kind of an interior/exo cage, the main purpose of it being to keep interior room in the front. thats actually why I put the front and rear supports on there, not bk the slider needed them, I could wheel on the 2 middle ones forever, but so that the cage had a support that was tied into the frame and so I didn't end up with a dead node on the attachement to the sliders. should be pretty beefy. here is the attachement point in the back,

 

[rookieshooter]

Excellent engineering and well thought out.

 

[blazinzuk]

Excellent engineering and well thought out.

I want to occasionally ride with Jon and I am a couple inches taller than him. No way we could fit a cage that would fit me it would barely fit Jon if we did full interior.

Besides the cool factor of having tubes appear out of the fender and then come back inside at the back.

Should turn out way cool

 

[janderson4010]

I want to occasionally ride with Jon and I am a couple inches taller than him. No way we could fit a cage that would fit me it would barely fit Jon if we did full interior.

Besides the cool factor of having tubes appear out of the fender and then come back inside at the back.

Should turn out way cool

props definitely go to Eric for the interior exterior cage idea, I think he is just trying to pimp his creativity on my rig though haha. the interior room is going to be nice, not to mention knowing that the rig is protected on the outside, plus its just gonna look *****in. getting pretty excited about it. I finished the rear support today, just need to do the front one and then start patching sheet metal.

 

[janderson4010]

don't laugh at my poor sheetmetal skils, it does help that its a little bit thicker stuff than I normally would have worked with. But it will seal the cab up and I think it looks *****in with the tube coming through the floor and connecting to the slider.

 

[rookieshooter]

I really like it. It looks so cool the way it blends together. Throw in some bed liner on it and it looks like it rolled out of the show room floor.
And to do this without the use of a fully equipped sheet metal shop is great.
Plus could put some RTV sealer on it also other then trying to make air tight welds. and then some bedliner over it, if you like.
Some removable floor plugs for water drainage helps out I found.

 

[janderson4010]

Ive had the inlaws visiting for the past few days so no chance to work on the bII. finally got the opportunity for a few hrs today, I was able to patch in the other middle bar today as well as both ends, still have a lot of grinding to do, I think its going to get to a point where I just give up on the grinding and paint over it, but I'm going to get the die grinder out and try to get some of the spots the angle grinder doesn't fit inside. here are a few pics.

 

[janderson4010]

dang that front patch looks waaaaaay worse in the picture, haha it actually looks passable in real life.

 

[rookieshooter]

It's just because the flash highlighted the shiny spots of the grinding marks. Taking pics of welded metal with low light that needs a flash and has been ground on is tough to do. If there is enough natural light sometimes that is the best way to do and forget the flash. Many times with a real camera ha ha I'll just take a few different shots until it looks like the real deal.

 

[janderson4010]

yeah but I can just take a pic with my phone, upload it to photobucket straight from my phone and then post to whatever thread I want to. its a real time saver. probably won't be able to mess with it again until wednesday, my wife and kids are leaving for 12 days and ill have all the time in the world to work on it. kinda hoping to get going on the cage in the next week or so.

 

[Heath]

With any luck you'll be sidetracked for an evening here soon...

 

[janderson4010]

o btw anyone who reads my thread, so basically the Ricks and some random persons unknown, everyone should go to the land use forum on here(yes there is a land use forum) and find the thread for tread lightly training. I would challenge everyone to go on there and take the tread lightly test, I took it last night, learned a few things and got my tread lightly certificate. its important to make sure that we are all active in keeping public lands open to use by all user groups, we can't let a few granola eating jackasses dictate when and where we can drive our rigs, and if it were up to them it would be nowhere, we would all be driving Prius's and eating granola. all you east coast guys have a way better idea of how all that works, how many public lands are open to wheeling around where you live? anyway ill get off my soapbox if you all will get on that thread and take the quiz, here is a link http://explorerforum.com/forums/showthread.php?t=341716

 

[broncobra22]

Tread lightly

Thanks for the heads up Jon, being pro active will help keep the tree huggers from destroying any and all out door recreation, especially motor sports. The tread lightly fundamentals are based on common sense and courtesy. I especially appreciated the information given about encountering horses and livestock while operating a motor vehicle on the trail, living in an area where horses & cattle out number humans, as I do, it is crucial from a safety stand point alone to interact with the animals in a non threatening manner. Riders on horseback, especially youngsters, are at risk from their animals panicking and going out of control. Worth the time for even extremely seasoned off roaders to take the short test.

 

[janderson4010]

raise your hand if you think i need bigger tires

haha jk well not really , I think my tires look a little bit small. guess I cut the wheel openings to big.

 

[Heath]

I think it looks great...

 

[janderson4010]

heath go take the tread lightly test, also don't tell my wife that my tires are big enough, as far as she is concerned i have the tiniest tires ever.

btw found a cool site about welding, check it out,

weldingtipsandtricks.com

 

[Heath]

She wasn't referring to your tires there bubba...

 

[rookieshooter]

That thing just beckons cage/exo. What are you going to do for seats?

 

[Heath]

That thing just beckons cage/exo. What are you going to do for seats?

Milk Crates!!!