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A cage for the Jimmy! Progress pics and worried questions (!) post 18!

while i think the hexagon is likely not the optimal form, i think there's ways you can work with it. i have an idea that might work (which needs further development). naturally, the hexagon shape when pressed down upon from above is going to want to squish downward. so, if you had a bar in tension between those two points, you should effectively solve that problem - as the hexagon squishes downward, the lower bends will want to move outward, but if you have a bar connecting those two points, it will be in tension and it will prevent those from moving, making the form very rigid again.

this is easy to do on the b - pillar hoop, as you can just run a bar between those two points and have it be a great spot to mount your seatbelts to. with the rear hoop, however, you likely wont want to do that because it will get in the way of cargo. since i assume you'll run a tube along the bed rail between those two hoops, however, you can do another shoulder-height bar behind the rear seat and gusset it out. this should make the form strong enough, i think.

another less desirable option would be to put a rib gusset on the inside of those bends which would strengthen them up pretty well.

bending those back out will be rediculously difficult, imo, particularly if you want it to look good.
 
colbystephens said:
while i think the hexagon is likely not the optimal form, i think there's ways you can work with it. i have an idea that might work (which needs further development). naturally, the hexagon shape when pressed down upon from above is going to want to squish downward. so, if you had a bar in tension between those two points, you should effectively solve that problem - as the hexagon squishes downward, the lower bends will want to move outward, but if you have a bar connecting those two points, it will be in tension and it will prevent those from moving, making the form very rigid again.

this is easy to do on the b - pillar hoop, as you can just run a bar between those two points and have it be a great spot to mount your seatbelts to. with the rear hoop, however, you likely wont want to do that because it will get in the way of cargo. since i assume you'll run a tube along the bed rail between those two hoops, however, you can do another shoulder-height bar behind the rear seat and gusset it out. this should make the form strong enough, i think.

another less desirable option would be to put a rib gusset on the inside of those bends which would strengthen them up pretty well.

bending those back out will be rediculously difficult, imo, particularly if you want it to look good.
Click to expand...


Thanks y'all! Bending them out= not an option! We discovered that when we over bent one just a little bit, LOL!:doah:(had to use a porta power to spread the feet 2"!) Plus, bending and unbending metal= weak material at bend!

Yeah Colby, I think we have similar thoughts! Maybe a brace? (sorry for the weak paintshop, LOL!)
Untitled.jpg


Only problem is, it will be offset to clear the front seat backs:
(imagine the O's as the hoop and the lines as the horizontal bars, viewed from above) (the horizontal bars need to be bent to clear the seatbacks)
offset.jpg
 
the offset isn't that big of a deal. i like the contoured look of offsets anyway. my only critique of that design would be to bring the idagonal tubes inward to create an actual triangle instead of that trapezpoid shape. consider gussets on top of the cross bar going up agains the b-pillar for extra peace of mind.
 
AHA! Gotcha Howdiy! I was wondering what ya meant, LOL!:D My bad! Yeah, I'd rather replace them if it came to that though, each bend weakens it a bit more.

Colby, yeah, I definitely see your point, I'm just wondering about rear seat leg room if I bring them to a triangle though. May have to rethink the leg positioning, cause right now, a tall persons legs go between the bars and to the floor behind the front seats. (Another reason I want to brace things, cause if the hoop collapses, the harness bar would crush the rear seat passengers legs.:eek1:) Gussets, yeah, I wanna gusset the snot outta it, we'll see how many I can do before I get told it's too many!;)
 
w/ respect to the leg room, consider losing the bottom bar and flip that triangle upside down so that the point is attached to the floor. leg room would stay constant and you'd gain another mounting point. ;)

and w/ respect to "each bend makes it weaker", that's not necessarily true. the bends further cold work the steel at that point, so it actually makes the steel stronger at the bend locations (to a limit). however, that said, i wouldn't bend the legs back out because i kinda think would look like crap...
 
Why not just add an extra length of tube like the picture above (the red line) to triangulate that bend?
 
I may have a bit of an idea brewing. Green lines are things I have built already, red lines are things I may add. I have yet to figure out the rear hoop additions, what do y'all think?
idea.jpg
 
i don't see a need for the red bar across the rear floor at the tailgate. i don't much care for the upper red bars, but that might me more aesthetic. combined with the bottom bars, i think it seems like a fairly decent mimic of an x brace. however, were it me, i'd rather do a triangle that points at the floor from the bottom of the cross bar at the b-pillar to ad another mounting point. it would basically accomplish the same thing, except for bracing the top half of the cage.

i'd like to see some triangulation of the length of the cage. consider a v-shape on the rear passenger windows, like on mine. i like this method because it's not in the way of the vision of the rear passenger. i intend to add a mounting point directly below the V, on top of the wheel well to further increase rigidity. it won't add much weight, but it should seriously increase rigidity. ;)

IMG_5535.jpg
 
Thanks Colby! That's a good looking cage and truck you've got there! :waytogo: How much lift/what size tires are you running? I'm planning to put a V type brace on the sides, I just didn't draw it because it looked very confusing on my pic. I am planning to run the horizontal bar at the bottom of the rear most hoop as part of a spare tire carrier (I lay my spare down in the rear cargo area and want to build a holder for it that is cage mounted).
 
your plan for the tire carrier sounds very similar to my original plan, but i decided not to go that route for 2 reasons.

1. a tire of about 38" is about all that will fit laying down in the back between the gate and the seat. i suppose you could angle it up, but then you're REALLY losing functional cargo space. which brings me to point number 2.

2. at least with a tire laying down, you can put stuff on top of it. this may not be an issue for you, but i go out on long camping trips with the truck and need the space for gear for me plus 3 friends... :) so cargo space is important to me.

my truck has 4" lift, 38" tires. the bottom 5" have been cut off of the rockers and lots of other body trimming that make it look like it's got a taller lift than it actually does. i've done some more trimming on it than what's shown in that picture too...
 
Cool deal! That's a great looking stance, I like the rockers too! Your rig actually looks a lot bigger than mine, I've got 3" lift and 37's. I like that green color too, looks to be about the same shade as Artzner's? It'd be sweet to see your modified rig and his stock one side by side!

Thanks for the input bro! Yeah, I've just got 37's so, the spare will fit laying flat, I think. I'm really trying to stay away from an outside mounted spare if I can since I hate the blocking of rearward visibility and have no desire to run a roof rack either. Still gives me some pretty good room for stuff on top/beside the spare. Thinking of running just a removable outer skin for a tailgate and a custom lift glass for about 3" more cargo area length later if I have to in order to fit whatever sized spare if I go bigger down the road. If I could find a soft top, that'd also eliminate the need for back glass.

I really need to re-measure the cargo area length now, we had to push the rear seat back some to compensate for some lost leg room. I really wish I had your body style so I didn't have the pushed back raise up of the rear floor. The footwell design dictated where my B pillar was gonna go (down in the footwell since it woulda been too far back if we woulda set it on the cargo area floor).
 
Colby I love that green. It looks awesome. I'm thinkin about painting my truck something like that. Ok hijack off LOL keep up the work on the cage! It's lookin good
 
it is the same color as artzner's. it's just the lime green color that the factory used (altho, mine is not original, i painted it.). he and i have joked about putting the rigs side by side some day. :)

my hope is go to a sculpture park in michigan next summer and hopefully drive the truck so i can do some wheeling along the way. maybe he and i could meet then! :haha:
 
That'd be awesome! A great pic! :waytogo:

Thanks for the encouragement dfl701! :D

Right now this 'cage build is really kicking my butt! I am a person that worries (A LOT!) so, designing a safe cage is very important to me and is keeping me up late at night thinking about it. A large portion of my original 'cage plans have had to be tweaked since they didn't fit how I had imagined. IDK we'll see what happens!
 
I actually am planning on fore/aft triangulation, I tried drawing it in that pic but it just looked confusing so I left it out. There's gonna be a V on either side that will tie to the middle of the side rails and be tied to a kind of inverted half hoop that will go behind the rear seat. I drew all that in and it looked like a jumbled mess where ya couldn't see what connected to what so, I left it out of the pic. Here's another one of my terrible paint pics, LOL! Green is what's done, red to be added (will probably do the red in 1&5/8" .120 wall tube so it doesn't seem overly bulky looking, ought be strong enough, I think):
sidebaridea.jpg
 
I'll shoot ya straight on this one..... I don't like the looks of those trapezoid rollbars. :shame:

If it were me, I'd chalk it up to experience and bend-up a couple of new hoops with a more conventional straight-leg design. You're only out the cost of a couple sticks of tube, and odds are that you can cut up those hoops and use at least part of them again for other gussets or intermediate bars.

Spending a lot of time and materials trying to "fix" a poor initial design reminds me of the old expression "you can't polish a turd". :D Not trying to kick a man when he's down....just trying to drive home a point, I think we all know that the correct answer requires going backwards a couple of steps and doing things right, not cobbling more tube onto what's already there.

Don't feel too bad. If I had a dollar for every foot of tube I've wasted, or bent wrong I'd have a big pile of dollars.....



:usaflag:
 
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