Sinking Creek 4WD Association

Since Steinberg liked my last topic so much I thought I would start a new discussion. I am trying to get everything figured out on the cage work I have started for the truck and have one major dilemma. How do you get everything welded up with everything tight to the roof? I see four options.
1 Weld as much as possible use lots of gussets and hope its good enough.
2 Cut holes in the floor and drop the cage weld it up then fix the floor.
3 Cut the roof off weld it up and then put the roof back on.
4 Tack everything together then cut the tube in a strategic location, remove the cage weld it up then splice the cut tubes back together.

Option one just seems way too sketchy to consider. 2 does not seem possible for me since I am tying the cage to the body mounts in the cab and cutting holes in the floor would mean I would be cutting the strongest part of the cab. Plus dropping the cage down would require the body to be lifted off the frame partially. Option 3 I have considered since I would like to paint the cab anyways but I just don’t feel like dealing with the glass. So that leaves me with option 4. But I cant find any good info on the strongest way to do it or where the best places would be to put the splice. The Allpro and Marlin cages use an external sleeve that is bolted together with no known problems but it seems that welding would be preferred. Anyone have any specific info on sleeving/splicing tube together? I am looking for info on the minimum length of the internal sleeve and also what wall diameter tube to use for the splice. I am using 1-3/4 .120 wall tube and have some 1-1/2 .095 wall tube to splice with but is that too small. I searched around and so far have found nothing maybe I am looking in the wrong place. Any Input.

i dont have any real input on the sleeving/splicing...sorry

but when we did the cage in randys cherokee he actually had enough room to run a full bead all the way around the joints, just burned the piss outta his headliner.....

he did plan on dropping the cage through the floor and ended up not having too, maybe yours could work out the same way and save you the trouble of splicing and sleeving?

cutting access holes at the corner of the roof an option rather than cutting the pillars and all? you could have multiple sunroofs like those nissan minivans

Adam,

The .095 wall sleeve would be fine. I normally make my internal slice piece about 6" long. I normally use 6 plug welds on each side and drill these holes in the outer tube with something around a 1/2" bit or bigger. I leave about 1/8"+ gap between the outside tubes to weld the tube ends to each other and to get the splice at the weld root. I also have begun mitering the splice tube so it doesn't concentrate stresses on the outer tube as bad when it's put in bending. Basically, I just don't cut the splice piece square because it aids the transition from splice to no splice. In the end it still concentrates some stresses. All welded and done correctly the splice section is obviously stronger than a continuous parent tube. I still don't grind down any of the welds unless it is in the way of another weld/tube etc. Leaving the plug welds and tube end weld as is only helps. Screw trying to hide it, it's not worth it. Also, if you like you can miter the two outer tubes so they match and therefore give more weld area. I don't do this and cut the outer tubes square.

If you have tight quarters you can scribe marks in the internal tube and use a pick through your plug weld holes to grab these scratches and slide the splice into place once the outer tubes are lined up.

Don't forget doing this method still brings the problems of welding in areas near the body that you likely can't get to. I don't know where you will find a splice-able spot that has 360 degree access..

Dropping through the body is normally the easiest and best way to go, but because you're doing the body mount thing it's not in this case.

Chopping the top is actually a lot easier than one might think. I'm thinking of doing this with my project. It's possible with just a sawzall, welder, and grinder. The glass is the only pita for me but I suck at windshields.

As suggested you can hole saw through the roof at the joints and just patch that. That's a pretty good option too. It works better at certain joints than others but could be combined with other methods.

Benny Thanks for the info on splicing. I am thinking of doing a splice at the bottom of the a pillar bars and hopefully I can just drop everything down low enough to weld it up and this should be an easy place to weld the splice back. I am at a stand still now because I need to make a couple of small bends.