1973-2013

Epiphany-
The jeep will be a runner by the Jeeps 40th birthday.

rear bumper and roll cage beginnings

I got a bit inspired after getting the rear bumper finished. The hole on the left is the exhaust

So I started measuring, measuring, and measuring THEN bent the tubing for the cage . I measured
with the top on several different times to see what could happen and kinda went for it.

This isn't mine, but I liked the looks of it.

 

The front tube is vertical, the rear is slanted at 65* like the top.
Tubing is 1 5/8" dia .120 wall A500B 
 

The bars went into many different positions before settling for corner mounted
bars.  This gave a lot of headroom for the rear passengers.  The initail plans are
to run some extension tubes to the windshield like  the wranglers had.
The windshiled doesn't fold so this would be practical, and if I want to
go 6 point later the tubes can be added in.





 

 



ok- how to explain this-
some commandos came as a convertable, and there was a hollow area that a small rear passenger
roll down wing window was mounted.  Not the best idea, but upon observing this I realized that
it would be better to utilize this waste of space than to use up the precious floorboards.
The roll bar fits onto a footer that is in the void and the outer rocker armor and inner floor bracing
are bolted through this.    To make it look better- and take care of the sharp edges- I broke off the spot welds
to the rear cover of the void (where paint ends on right) and moved it to the left of the roll bar and re welded it.
The ginormous hole will have a plate bent to cover it with a drink holder in it.

An upper view of how short the void is now.  Replacing this piece also strengthend the door latch.  The black
piece of plastic was cut down to fit the hole.  Whatever engineer came up with this needs to be flogged.
 

Here is the basics of the cage-  Somehow it came out pretty straight.  After thought of all of this is when
I tried opening the tailgate and the handles cleared the rear bars by 1/4" on both sides.

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Roll bar frame supports are done on the rear.  I cut a 4x4 piece of square tubing
down on the corners to fit the rear frame crossmember that the rear springs mount to.
 A 3/16 plate w/ two 9/16" holes has 2 of the roll bar
bolts through it so if it has to move a little it can. 
A piece of roll bar tubing resides between the two.
The roll bar and supports have a layer of rubber insulation
between them and the body to reduce squeaks also.

The floorboard  was replaced and reinforced above the passenger rear corner prior to this.
This was where the hat channel usually collected dirt and rotted out.  Another Jeep engineer that needs to be flogged.