Building a Roll Bar

[prossett]

One of the first things I need to do to my 83 Jimmy (besides the Off Road Design power steering brace) is build a roll bar.

It has to fit inside the bed cover, and must leave room for unfastening the bed cover bolts to remove it. Plus, the lighter, the better; and the cheaper, the better. No fancy tools 'coz I live in the middle of the friggin' desert - welding, drilling, bending is ok.

Its purpose of course is to provide some insurance in the event of a roll (buddy rolled down a dune 7 complete turns recently) - I drive on sand dunes, where speed and off-camber driving are required. Luckily the sand is soft!

My question is: who has some sketches/plans/advice for building it, or knows where I can find some?

I'll gladly share what I did once I'm finished.

 

[pauly383]

Most of what you see on here was made at home , or by fab shops . Some people even use the factory optional bar and build from there . Or a pre bent kit and weld it up . Do a search for smittybuilt , s+w , and roll cage . You'll find many posts on this .

 

[ZooMad75]

Plus, the lighter, the better; and the cheaper, the better.

Lighter and cheaper don't always mean better when it comes to a roll bar. Even more so if you expect it to give you any level of protection in event of a rollover, let alone a high speed one.

Go for the kits as Pauly noted. Light is not what one driving a 5000 pound should be looking for. You need something that will support the truck in event of a roll. That means decent steel, DOM or HREW. Plus I'd look at more that just a single bar, I'd at least go for a 4 point setup around the driver/front passenger area. There are many that have used the S&W kits in addition to the Smittybuilt kits. Do the searches and you should be able to find many pictures of each.