Scott- You should put up some pics of what you are building so people can see it done right.

 

re:the redneck remark... I prefer the term "Crimson Nape".

 

BW

now ah jes wanna mayke wun thang cleer heer.....

 

 

I AINT no dadgum redneck!

 

If you want some reading' date=' and an example of a VERY VERY well done roll cage project to give you ideas, click here. The poster of this thread is a VERY VERY smart and experienced dude. Obviously, he is going to exterme lengths to build a top notch racecar roll cage into a datsun Z car, and you are just building a buggy out of your wagon.. so it is two differerent JOBS entirely, but the tasks and issues that need to be addresses are the same. We also got off into a great tangent of body/chassis stiffening, in addition to the sheer safety/impact effects of the cage.

 

Good reading.

ok i am NOT gonna put a roll bar in it just yet i dont go and rally the hell out of my car i do mud pits and trails. now im shure someone els is gonna come on here and say "you need a roll bar!!!" for the time beng i DO NOT NEED a roll bar. i know how to make a roll bar i know what they look like. but i dont need one. i know and trust my welds. im not trying to sound like an azz but i know whait i can and cannot do to my car.

 

 

Thanks Rob.

Looks pretty sweet dude, Git-R-Done!

-Bill

FWIW, I never said ya needed a "roll bar." I said you needed a roll cage to replace the sheetmetal ya cut off. One is simple rollover protection, the other is chassis engineering.

At the very least, do yourself a favor and stitch a length of angle iron on top of each bed rail running from the front doors back to the tail gate, and do some sort of fish-plate over the inner rear door openings as well (so the doors are welded front & back, inside & out) so you've got some sorta structural integrity instead of just a cosmetic repair.

Simply welding the outer roor panels to the 1/4 panels is a start, but it won't make up for the material removed.

i understand that and i wasent jumping out at you. i am sorry if i sounded like that. i am going to do that tho. put a tailgate in it and weld it shut also tha angle iron on the bed rails

put some bolts thru some of the crucial points, like where the tailgate meets the sides and the top with some brackets, the bolts will help thension things together. welts can crack. i would trust my own welts but i would tie in bolts wherever i can as well, welds do crack if they dont go deep enough

Don't take it the wrong way, I didn't think you were snapping at me, and I certainly don't wanna sound like I'm snapping at you, but my mind keeps slipping back to when I was seventeen and I just freakin' DESTROYED a perfectly good '68 Javelin when I put it on a "weight loss" program and got rid of all the sheetmetal that I figured was useless..about eight hundred bucks, some subframe connecters, and a twelve-point rollcage later (ouch!), the car was able to stand on it's own paws without sagging, accellerate/stop without flexing, and both doors could be opened w/o breaking any windows..

It was a fairly pricey lesson, but I learned a lot about unibody construction fast & hard..I reckon you're gonna be doing the same, I was sorta hoping to smooth some of the bumps for ya is all.

:-p

i understand and i am gona be doing what i need befor this car ever gose off road or on road im ging to be testing it i have already tried to break my welds

me and a couple of friends bounced the back of the car slamming it on the ground and everything held also my doors open and shut very well. i dont het any flex from my side walls.

 

also thanks for the info on the bolt miles i havent heard theat befor.

YES MORE PICS well one more but it in the DAYTIME

i was bored and felt inspired to wake up the neighborhood :-p its kinda dark but eh hearing it is what i was going for.

 

 

 

http://s194.photobucket.com/albums/z177/subaruguru/?action=view&current=S3010091.flv