Installing a cage into DWD's Explorer

[tdavis]

Pics of DWD's new cage..

 

[tdavis]

More..

 

[tdavis]

And more..

 

[tdavis]

More fun..

 

[tdavis]

Not done yet..

 

[tdavis]

last set

 

[Kirby N.]

Sweet! Are you going to weld it in place? Going to leave the interior in while you weld it in?

 

[Brian_B]

Thats so cool. Are you going to tie it to the frame once its all bolted in? I see the lincoln mig, but how are you cutting and bending the pipes?

 

[Diff Whack Daddy]

It is currently getting painted out of the truck and then will be put back in and welded in place, never to come out again. Then we will paint where we welded. We have a wlding blanket and other pieces of tin to protect the interior while welding.

 

[bmxking5]

Awesome! Hopefully you can get the X back out on the trails and not have to use that cage. Looks really good by the way.

 

[JTX]

Be carful with the interior, i didnt really care when i did mine. But it doesnt take much to burn a hole in something. Have water near by to, i almost burnt mine to the ground. lol. Looks good though! See ya in Moab!

 

[nissanboy]

ON the hoop behind the front seats consider running your seatbelt bolts through the plates. I did on mine and it allowed me to position my hoop a little bit easier.

Alos when you weld to the floorpan in teh back there is a aluminum-tape thing under the carpet. I had to cut that back to get to some steel.

And my final suggestion is to get soem undercoating and spray the underside of the floorpan after you finish welding everything to prevent rust where the factory undercoat and paint all burn away.

 

[Kirby N.]

Ah, DWD = Diff Wack Daddy

Looks good. I like that you left the back seats in. Lets see it when it is painted and done!!

 

[unclemeat]

No slugs through the body? How are you going to go through the body?

 

[RangerX]

I give it two thumbs up!

 

[Diff Whack Daddy]

Let's see if I can answer all these questions at once. The tubes are welded to 3/16th inch plate. There is a matching plate on the underside of the body. They are all held down with 4 3/8th inch bolts. Slugs are good, but more work than needed. The B hoop is using the seat belt bolts as one of it's bolts. The cage will someday be attatched to the frame, but the general rule of thumb is to attatch your cage to what your seats are attatched to. My seats are still attatche to the body. When I replace the seats and attatch the seat to the roll cage, I will then tie the cage into the frame by running tube from the bottom plates to the frame.


We used a ban saw to cut the tubing and a manual tube bender to bend it.

 

[Mbrooks420]

Looks good, and very stout.

 

[unclemeat]

So how much tube did it take?

 

[bitchinexplorer]

thats looks good.

 

[dreamr]

Looking good Sir,

Now that that's all done the wife will let you come out and play right