love the truck, I searched a ton through the thread, but how many sticks or total feet did you end up using for your cage? I am looking to order some tubing for mine and yours is a great inspiration.
CK5
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My 86 K5 build
- Thread starter Kay86K5
- Start date
Thanks!!
Where I purchased mine (and I think most metal shops are like this) they were only sold in 20 ft sticks. And I believe (if I remember right) I got 7 or 8 total sticks of tube, and the purchased 1 20ft stick of 1" tube for my bracing....but I knew I was going to use some of that tube for my rear bumper, crossmember, and wrap bar so I wanted some left over. I still have 10 ft or so left over sitting in my garage right now.
I'm a believer in, take whatever you think it's going to take to build it, and add on another 10%-20% more cause you are going to have some that gets ruined cause you jacked up a bend (at least I did, haha) and at least when I built mine I had an idea of what I wanted, but as it progressed my plans changed and I added more tube then I thought I would.
Hope that helps
Thanks!!
Where I purchased mine (and I think most metal shops are like this) they were only sold in 20 ft sticks. And I believe (if I remember right) I got 7 or 8 total sticks of tube, and the purchased 1 20ft stick of 1" tube for my bracing....but I knew I was going to use some of that tube for my rear bumper, crossmember, and wrap bar so I wanted some left over. I still have 10 ft or so left over sitting in my garage right now.
I'm a believer in, take whatever you think it's going to take to build it, and add on another 10%-20% more cause you are going to have some that gets ruined cause you jacked up a bend (at least I did, haha) and at least when I built mine I had an idea of what I wanted, but as it progressed my plans changed and I added more tube then I thought I would.
Hope that helps
Great! That is what I figured, and trust me I will mess up a piece or 2 for sure.
brokenparts
1/2 ton status
Just read all 37 pages... great build up. The 44s just puts it over the top. Love it.
Decided it was time to work on the seats/belts in my blazer. I was rocking the stock seats this whole time which have been fine, but I wanted to install my full 4 point harnesses now (been just running the lap belt portion for a year or two).
So I purchased these seats:
https://www.summitracing.com/parts/sum-g1130l
They come with a adjustable slide function that I wanted to keep...so after a while of staring at everything, I decided to use the factory seat bases and make them work with the new seats
The sliders on the seats are wider than the factory seat base, so I took some metal and basically just cut a rectangle out wide enough to be able to bolt to both the base and the sliders of the sets. Here are some pictures showing it mounted:
Then I bolted it into location to see if there was anything else I needed to adjust:
And if fit like a freaking dream...I think it fits even better than the stock seats!
The one thing I noticed is the stock seat base has a slight "curve" on the top of it, and I bolted a flat piece of steel to it. So there was a slight bit of play from the seat and base. So I stole the stock base brackets that bolt the stock seat to the base, bent them enough to work for me, and welded them to the base and my new piece of steel to stiffen everything up...it worked really well. Here are some crappier pics showing those braces:
Then cut and welded up a cross-tube which is where I'm going to weld on some tabs for the shoulder mounts of the 4 point harness's:
So, then I started working on the passenger side and realized that on these factory seats, the passenger seat base is different than the driver base. Since the passenger seat has the recline/slide function to let people into the back seat, the base is very different to accommodate this. It was going to be way too much work to make it work....so I called my brother who put these same seats in his rig a while ago, and asked if he still had his driver seat/base laying around and he said yes. So he's going to mail me his driver base and I will duplicate what I did on this new seat for the passenger seat.
So, once I get the seat base in the mail, I'll finish up the passenger seat, weld on the tabs for the shoulder straps, and should be good to go. I'll get some finished pics once I get all that done, probably this next weekend
So I purchased these seats:
https://www.summitracing.com/parts/sum-g1130l
They come with a adjustable slide function that I wanted to keep...so after a while of staring at everything, I decided to use the factory seat bases and make them work with the new seats
The sliders on the seats are wider than the factory seat base, so I took some metal and basically just cut a rectangle out wide enough to be able to bolt to both the base and the sliders of the sets. Here are some pictures showing it mounted:
Then I bolted it into location to see if there was anything else I needed to adjust:
And if fit like a freaking dream...I think it fits even better than the stock seats!
The one thing I noticed is the stock seat base has a slight "curve" on the top of it, and I bolted a flat piece of steel to it. So there was a slight bit of play from the seat and base. So I stole the stock base brackets that bolt the stock seat to the base, bent them enough to work for me, and welded them to the base and my new piece of steel to stiffen everything up...it worked really well. Here are some crappier pics showing those braces:
Then cut and welded up a cross-tube which is where I'm going to weld on some tabs for the shoulder mounts of the 4 point harness's:
So, then I started working on the passenger side and realized that on these factory seats, the passenger seat base is different than the driver base. Since the passenger seat has the recline/slide function to let people into the back seat, the base is very different to accommodate this. It was going to be way too much work to make it work....so I called my brother who put these same seats in his rig a while ago, and asked if he still had his driver seat/base laying around and he said yes. So he's going to mail me his driver base and I will duplicate what I did on this new seat for the passenger seat.
So, once I get the seat base in the mail, I'll finish up the passenger seat, weld on the tabs for the shoulder straps, and should be good to go. I'll get some finished pics once I get all that done, probably this next weekend
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Seats look good in there. I feel so much better when I have my shoulder straps on too.
Looks good.
niceeee
brokenparts
1/2 ton status
Looks great.
Finished up mounting my seats and getting my harness's in there:
First, like I mentioned before, my brother was kind enough to send me his stock driver seat base so I could mount my passenger seat. The only small difference I found was the footprint for the 4 bolts to mount to the floor is a tiny bit different from the driver to the passenger, but all I had to do was drill two holes on the bottom of the base to get it to bolt up, not a big deal
And the pic above is the seat slid forward as far as it will go. Did the same bracing I did on the driver seat:
Then I got some of DIY4x's racer tabs. Talked with Kurt and he made me some thinner tabs so I could make the mounting dual sheer:
And all finished welded, painted, and harnesses hooked up:
I sat in there all hooked up with the harness's, and it's very comfortable...very worthwhile upgrade without braking the bank or getting too fancy with the execution of it
First, like I mentioned before, my brother was kind enough to send me his stock driver seat base so I could mount my passenger seat. The only small difference I found was the footprint for the 4 bolts to mount to the floor is a tiny bit different from the driver to the passenger, but all I had to do was drill two holes on the bottom of the base to get it to bolt up, not a big deal
And the pic above is the seat slid forward as far as it will go. Did the same bracing I did on the driver seat:
Then I got some of DIY4x's racer tabs. Talked with Kurt and he made me some thinner tabs so I could make the mounting dual sheer:
And all finished welded, painted, and harnesses hooked up:
I sat in there all hooked up with the harness's, and it's very comfortable...very worthwhile upgrade without braking the bank or getting too fancy with the execution of it
Those look really good.
brokenparts
1/2 ton status
Very nice. I have to start thinking about my cage soon... this gives me some good ideas.
Damn that turned out nice. Perfect belt heigh too!
Thanks! Almost looks like I knew what I was doing the whole time, haha
Whoa, I wouldn't go that far....
True, I just fake it until I kinda make it (and usually fail)
Not really an update, but some family was in town for Thanksgiving and my bro wanted to do some kind of wheeling, so we went to Ram Offroad park in CO Springs and messed around there for a couple hours. Was fun to try some new lines.. Didn't get many pics, but these were the ones we did get
brokenparts
1/2 ton status
Drool.
