Cage questions....

[lil_Blue_Ford]

So I'm getting ready to put a cage in my choptop (finally). Gonna pull the windshield since it's broken and I'm inclined to go with a pre-fab cage from Jegs (Ranger cage, 10 point) as something to start with and I'll add whatever I need to make it suit my purposes. I figure for what it costs compared to what the cost of steel is locally, it's a good deal.

That said, I have some questions about making it all work the way I want it to.

The tube they use for the cage is 1 5/8 round .134 wall mild steel. I priced some out locally since I want to do an inverted V behind the front seats so it's easier to crawl into the back as well as doing a full cage in the back (like the Jeep family bar type), only thing is, locally that tube goes for $5.66 a foot and if I would get four sticks, that's nearly $500 bucks. So I thought about trying to see if I can find something a little more reasonably priced, but I'm not sure if I should stick with the same diameter or if it will cause any problems to go slightly bigger/smaller, etc.

Also, the Jegs cage uses a Halo bar setup. Looking at where the front supports will come down, I can see that they will probably be pretty close to the dash. I don't really want to go through the headache of swapping out my dash now, but at some future point, it's probably going to get swapped out. I saw that a couple companies make a sort of cage joint that bolts together, so what I'm asking is if ya'll think it would be safe to use one of those joints up near the roof so that I can remove the front support bars at some future point for ease of replacing the dash. THESE are what I'm talking about.

Finally, (for now) comes the floor plates. Jegs includes some 1/8" thick plates with the cage and the instructions say to weld the plates to the floor. Eventually I'll probably make braces that go from the plates to the frame. Should I be using say a 1/4" thick plate? Should I just bolt it to the floor for now until I fab up the frame braces instead of welding?

 

[3.0ranger1227]

Yes the tube clamp is safe. good luck getting it all back together once you drive it a few times and then take it off though. DO NOT bolt the cage to the floor. you want the cage to pass through the floor and go straight to frame. yes you can bolt plates to the floor and have them welded to the tube, but you want the tube as unbroken as possible to the frame.

 

[alwaysFlOoReD]

I've done a fair amount of research on cages and for your own piece of mind, so should you if you plan on building and/or installing your own.
I've seen both good and bad reports on the tube clamp.
From what I could find on Jeg's web site, there is the main cage hoop,with another hoop attached to the top of the main hoop running at the top of the cab roof perimeter from drivers side to passenger side. At the front of the cab roof hoop there are two down tubes that are the ones that might interfere with the dash. It looks to me that you could temporarily leave off the two down tubes and the cab roof hoop until you have changed out your dash.
Welding a plate to the cab/body is a legitimate way of attaching a cage to a vehicle....how do you think a cage is attached to a uni-body? Though I agree that a unbroken cage to the frame is "probably" strongest...probably be cause I'm not an engineer.
Unless you solid mount the cab, you need to have some form of movement in the cage to frame mount to match the movement of the cab to frame. I've seen an example of such with a cage welded to a plate bolted through the floor, another plate of a different size bolted to the underside, making a sandwich- plate,cab,plate. Welded to the bottom plate is cage-tube with a "rubber" mount similar in design to leaf-spring mountings, and a final tube welded to a plate welded to the frame.
Good luck,

Richard

 

[Bennybooster]

Check out my build for some ideas, if you have some more questions feel free to pm me

 

[4x4junkie]

Unless you solid mount the cab, you need to have some form of movement in the cage to frame mount to match the movement of the cab to frame. I've seen an example of such with a cage welded to a plate bolted through the floor, another plate of a different size bolted to the underside, making a sandwich- plate,cab,plate. Welded to the bottom plate is cage-tube with a "rubber" mount similar in design to leaf-spring mountings, and a final tube welded to a plate welded to the frame.
Good luck,

Richard

This is something I've seen overlooked once. The result was the cage literally ripping the floor apart around the plates because it couldn't move with the cab.

Mounting to the floor by itself is fine if the load is spread out a ways using large foot plates.
I used 3/16" thick plates on mine and 1/8" plates underneath to sandwich it. They are approximately 6-8" or so in size (I think the rearmost plates ended up being 4x8" or something due to space limitations, however they are also sitting right on top of the thick rear body mount crossbeam).

As for tubing size, 1-3/4", 1-1/2", and 1-5/8" O.D (in that order) with a .120" wall thickness appear to be the most popular sizes for cage building. 1-1/2" DOM should be fine for your supports if you can get it significantly cheaper than 1-5/8".

 

[alwaysFlOoReD]

Edit; the two plates should be different sizes not in thickness but perimeter IE 4x6 on top 5x7 on bottom. IIRC square inches @~ 30"

Richard

 

[lil_Blue_Ford]

Yea, I don't want to solid-mount the cab, and what you're talking about, alwaysfloored, is exactly what I had in mind - using a piece of tube with a leaf-spring type bushing at the frame. I want to keep things sturdy, but I'm also trying to keep in mind that this truck will see both street and trail use. I don't intend on beating it off-road (I'm building something else for that duty), but more milder stuff with minimal risk to body panels, lol. I put new poly body mounts in it two or three years ago now.

As far as changing out the dash goes, I'm really itching to get the truck on the road and I don't really have a whole lot of time to work on it right now, so I'd rather leave the dash for some other time (provided you don't have to pull the windshield to pull the dash). Right now my windshield is broken, so I figured it would be an excellent time to install the cage and get it properly welded up, unless I break another windshield, this is the time where I'll have the most access to welding things up.

I'll have to look into some other steel prices then, thanks for the input.

 

[AZFX4]

So did you go with the jegster cage?

 

[lil_Blue_Ford]

So did you go with the jegster cage?

I had the money. I had the day planned. Then I called Jegs the day before to make sure they had the cage in stock (their website showed that it would ship out the next business day) and found that they really didn't have it in stock, they'd have to bend one up in their fab shop, which they said they wanted a week's notice. So I scrapped my plans and said I'd get back to them.

Then I needed some of the money to pay a bill.

Then I got enough money saved up again and had to buy some more parts that I didn't expect to have to buy....

Now come Friday I should have enough again. So at this point I'm planning on calling in later this week and picking it up early next week. Cross your fingers, I'm getting tired of delaying this project, lol.