TJ Roll Cage options

[prariepunk]

Hi all-
I was wondering if it would be cheaper to design (or get a CAD drawing for) a roll cage for my '05 TJ or just get one of the pre-made ones? My buddy has access to a shop with a tube bender & experience in making cages (albiet for drag racing).
If the designing one is cheaper, does anyone have any safty suggestions? I've heard squares are to be avoided & triangles are safe but that's about all I know. My buddy loves to bend tube & make cages (He's tryiing to talk me into an Exo :roll:... but I don't think so).

 

[sparkfan]

Hi all-
I was wondering if it would be cheaper to design (or get a CAD drawing for) a roll cage for my '05 TJ or just get one of the pre-made ones? My buddy has access to a shop with a tube bender & experience in making cages (albiet for drag racing).
If the designing one is cheaper, does anyone have any safty suggestions? I've heard squares are to be avoided & triangles are safe but that's about all I know. My buddy loves to bend tube & make cages (He's tryiing to talk me into an Exo :roll:... but I don't think so).

I did the rock hard kit for my TJ and am extremely happy with it. If you're going to bend and weld one, I would suggest finding someone that has a cage that will work for your app and take a bunch of pictures. Welding a cage is the same weather it is a drag racing app or a jeep.

 

[Jeepergeo]

I went with a Rock Hard kit that supplements the factory cage. It is a well thought out system and installation was not too bad. I included the frame tie in option too for obvious reasons. One thing to know is that the kit comes bare steel, so add time to prime and paint. If I were to do it again, I would go with powder coat since it would give a better finish than restelouem primer and enamel.

Get yourself some good Allen wrenches and some that work in tight quarters.

Have a tow rope and rod ready as you may need to flex the factory bars to allow the connections to be made.

 

[phall92139]

I'm all for DYI projects but if you've never done a cage before and your buddy's experience doesn't include TJ's, I'd look at a pre-fab cage as mentioned in the other posts here.

There's a lot of engineering issues that must be addressed in your design work that's hard to visualize, even in a CAD drawing. You really need to find someone with a good cage design to copy all the measurements from to ensure adequate headroom front & rear, clearance for your soft and/or hard tops, proper triangulation and gusseting for strength, what size tube to use and where, and so on.

Also, since the price of steel has gone up so much in the last couple of years it might be almost as cheap to buy a pre-fabbed cage from a company that "mass" produces them, than to buy all your DOM tubing and flat plate gusset materials.

Don't mean to sound discouraging but there's just no margin for error in designing and installing a good roll cage.

 

[prariepunk]

Don't mean to sound discouraging but there's just no margin for error in designing and installing a good roll cage.

I hear ya on that one! Thank you for the input everyone!

 

[prariepunk]

the one thing that kind of scares me is the way most of the sport cages bolt up front... it's not as safe looking as DOM but that's just my honest opinion

 

[Turbogus]

Mac of Mac's Jeeparts has mentioned that as long as that portion of the body isn't compromised they're good to go. As for 'Betty' I just went with the old school type that goes to the floorboard, kind of thight getting in and out but when I get around to it it seems it's more straightforward to mate the mounting bolts to a subframe to the frame rails.