Welding the cage in is a fair job. The instructions, such as they were, ran to 2 sides of A4. No clue which tube to start with, continue with etc. No clue how to weld the top tubes through a full 360, or the other close fitting bars for that matter.
What follows is how I went about it, I have only done one and cannot count on years of experience. I may also have got the sequence slightly out as this is getting written a couple of years after the installation, so all in all this is written in good faith but remember you need to be happy tackling such a big job.
Apart from a welder, obviously, you are going to need a hydraulic power pack, some ratchet straps to move the cage as you weld and an angle grinder. Your welder is going to need to be in the 180A range. Other items that ar very usefull are various lengths of rope to hold tubes in place whilst you try and fit other pieces, or mark, or look, or ponder. Definetly lots of pondering.
You need to start with the main hoop, and adjust the legs until it sits snugly between the B pillars. The two front bars that come up the A pillars are next, and may need adjusting to get them parallel with the top of the door. Next will be the windscreen cross brace and then the cross brace in the roof. Ensure it goes from in front of the driver to behind the co driver to give the driver maximum headroom. All welds have to be fully around the tube. Do not try and con the scrutineer, firstly you will not as he uses a mirror to check, and secondly this is built to save your life. To achieve this welding around the roof bars after the above tubes are in place cut a hole in the floor below the tubes so that the whole thing falls though and gives access to the tops. Finish welding the tubes. lift the cage back up and re-weld the floor. Whilst down there you want to weld in the spreader plates for the bottom of the tubes.
Next take angle grinder and cut slots in the front bulkhead. You are going to need to flex the cage to finish the welds at the end of the door bars and also the tubes that pick up the front suspension mounts. Align these tubes and weld away. You will have to put a ratchet around the bottom of the A pillar bars and pull them together to finish the welding. We also used the power pack to move the whole thing from side to side to gain maximum space to weld.
After doing this the door bars are next. Do not go too low as you need to weld the down tubes to the foot plates. Again much use of ratchet straps and power packs.
When you have all this in place you can weld the cage to the floor plates, front strut towers, and then the cross piece behind the dashboard. I spent ages profiling mine before realising that with the door bars and front strut tower strengtherners in place it didn’t fit where I had hoped any longer. The cross brace across the hoop, and also across the top of the tunnel. The diagonal welds to the cross piece, not the other way around.
Next comes the rear, to be honest I cannot remember the exact sequence, but if you got this far you will have it sorted by now.
-
- Dash bar, I have no idea how to get this in
-
- One giant puzzle. Most Bits are numbered, diagram isn’t. Wonderfull
-
- Rough layout. I think both tubes have to sit higher.
-
- Same here. Don’t understand why the cross pieces don’t meet.
-
- It gets tricky to secure eveything without welding.
-
- I think this tube needs profiing to sit against the plate
-
- Plonked in to hold the A tubes apart
-
- Cross piece on O/S
-
- Cross piece on N/S. According to Custom cages no tubes need cutting
-
- Another tube that doesn’t need cutting
-
- Why I think the tube needs profiling
-
- Roll Cage tacked in
-
- Looking up at the Roof
-
- Tried to get the tube level with the Door frame.
-
- Main hoop Profiled
-
- And the O/S
-
- Looking forwards. I might remove the Welder before we compete.
-
- Bottom of the front tubes.
-
- Cage now welded properly
-
- Screen Bar required brackets removing
-
- Cage lowered
-
- Looking across the cage
-
- Strap to pull cage together
-
- To allow it to drop though the floor
-
- Welding taking place
-
- To prove we welded the top
-
- Not quite such a good photo
-
- “A” post welded to Hoop
-
- Cross brace welded to front corner
-
- Screen bar on Drivers side
-
- Welder started wire brushing
-
- Cleaned up weld
-
- Hoop on Drivers side
-
- Looking forward with cage lowered
-
- Welding the foot plates in place. Use of hydraulic power pack required here.
-
- Welding the back of the plate.
-
- Slotted dash ready for pulling “A” pillar bars together
-
- Rear cross brace tacked in place
-
- Where the X brace meets the hoop
-
- And the passenger side
-
- With Upper strut brace in place
-
- Seat belt tubes also in place
-
- Removed more steel than necessary
-
- Bottom strut brace held in place
-
- On the other side
-
- Door bars something like
-
- Back of door bars
-
- Front of door bars
-
- Home made gussets for rear strut towers
-
- Templating the gussets
-
- Another view of O/S Gusset
-
- Leg warming taking place
-
- When grinding ensure you protect the paintwork.
-
- Still one more piece to make on the N/S
-
- New position of door bars
-
- Holes cut to pick up diff mounts.
-
- Close up of holes. They were cleaned before welding.
-
- Spreading the front bars to weld the door bars..
-
- Upper door bar welded.
-
- Spreading the Hoop to weld the door bars.
-
- Welding in Progress.
-
- Patching up the diff mount pickup.
-
- And the other one.
-
- Cage nearly complete. Just needs the cross brace.
-
- Sorting those joints out took a couple of minutes.
-
- You can just see the rear strut tower mount.
-
- Drivers triangulation bar.
-
- Shape that was required to fit the lower door bar.
-
- Used a cardboard tube as a template, having already wrecked one bar.
-
- The welder welding hard.
-
- Front strut bracket under construction
-
- Side View.
-
- Nearly Complete.
-
- Quick shot of the completed cage. More to follow !
