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1987 K5 Rebuild- narrow and dovetail the body-Painted

Overview Gallery Discussion
Kay86K5 said:
body work is looking good. Keep it up! What ideas do you have for the cage?
Click to expand...

So I'll have to spend some time doing some advanced paint sketches but basically I think I want a mixture of exo and interior. The trails my friends run up here have a ton of tight rocks and trees, Lotta off camber so I need my A pillar, roof protected and fenders r cheap so w.e., for the back I will have the bench seat in it. I would like a tube going thru the bedside to protect the top of the bed and attach to the inner cage. I'll post up some more ideas as I get em drawn.
 
So coming up with cage ideas... I need some input. I am going to order tubing in the next few weeks. Where all my friends wheel in NH at field and forest, its tight trees, tight rocks... aka not for fullsize. My thought is this, save the cab, protect the roof and i don't care if the front fenders get trashed.

I love how tight this is against the A pillar.






I also like how this goes INTO the back, what I would love to do is basically create the back area that Kay86K5 has, and tie it into the A pillar exo cage front.Are there any issues with your thoughts on this?





Dont mind my amazing paint skills. Just to get a rough idea.






Personally... I dont totally love the look of the exo, and it will be VERY hard to get it to how I want to look, but logically makes sense.
 
If you make the B-pillar tube behind the front seats tall enough so the exo A-pillar tubes don't have such a severe bend in them to connect, then I think it should be totally fine. I think it would look really good on this rig too.

On mine, you can see the B-pillar tube is just below the cab for two reasons. One is because I wanted to have the option of putting my hard top back on since it's nice to have with my kids, and sense I went interior cage on the front, it needed to be low enough to connect to the front half of the cage. But since you narrowed the rear, obviously a hard top is out of the question (I would assume) so you can make that tube go pretty much even with the top of the cab and have a nice clean connecting point with the A-pillar exo tubes.
 
Kay86K5 said:
If you make the B-pillar tube behind the front seats tall enough so the exo A-pillar tubes don't have such a severe bend in them to connect, then I think it should be totally fine. I think it would look really good on this rig too.

On mine, you can see the B-pillar tube is just below the cab for two reasons. One is because I wanted to have the option of putting my hard top back on since it's nice to have with my kids, and sense I went interior cage on the front, it needed to be low enough to connect to the front half of the cage. But since you narrowed the rear, obviously a hard top is out of the question (I would assume) so you can make that tube go pretty much even with the top of the cab and have a nice clean connecting point with the A-pillar exo tubes.
Click to expand...

Yeah, the hard top is a distance idea... i have seen people narrow them but lets be real, i can just toss a tarp on it or a soft top at some point. Ill order up some tubing next week so we shall see soon!
 
Totally off topic to where I am going with the build, but nv3500 out of a 97 chevy fullsize, can they be swapped in easily to a 208 or 205?
 
stockk5 said:
Totally off topic to where I am going with the build, but nv3500 out of a 97 chevy fullsize, can they be swapped in easily to a 208 or 205?
Click to expand...
Any 208 or 241 will bolt right up no problem.

Btw didn't know you were doing a manual swap, but I whole heartedly approve :waytogo:
 
Only thing you'd need to run it is a set of hydro pedals and 32 spline round pattern tcase. Not sure about drive shafts though. I would advise against the 205 for this because you're going to want the better low range of the 208 or 241.
 
Digging the build. Watch you don't make the exterior cage work to wide right behind the fenders, that's where the trees will hang you up.
Check your frame right around where the rear spring hanger was. I've seen frame cracks and bent frames start there.
 
stockk5 said:
So coming up with cage ideas... I need some input. I am going to order tubing in the next few weeks. Where all my friends wheel in NH at field and forest, its tight trees, tight rocks... aka not for fullsize. My thought is this, save the cab, protect the roof and i don't care if the front fenders get trashed.

I love how tight this is against the A pillar.....
Click to expand...

Have you seen the exo on jt512's truck? TIGHT!
 
Hey guys, so I am at the point when I am bending some tube, I bent up the B pillar.. and now I need to order up some cage plates. I am stuck on which size. I plan on hard mounting to my frame, so does it matter which size plate I go with? 5x6 or 3x3? I figured larger would have more surface area so less chance of ripping through the body.. but if its hard mounted.. does that even matter?



 
If you have any tube inside the cab to prevent it pushing off upwards I would not worry, plates are for the guys who bolt the cage to the body and then sandwich it and weld to the frame, so there's more of a chance to have separation or shearing, this is why I went internal with mine, I could build my box and then connect it where I wanted. Less holes or so I thought but no way the cab will crush even if the cage sheared off the frame.
 
Unless your planning to bolt two plates together to make the cage removable, I don't see a reason to make a shear point.
 
it maybe because its 6am when I am writing this, but you guys are suggesting that I do NOT have any plates? Just holes in the floor and then notch it onto a tube that comes off of my frame?
 
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