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Roll bar

Unforgiven

Unforgiven

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Army70,

That's pretty much what I was thinking for an external cage to be "camouflaged" as a roof rack. I would add B pillars between the front & rear doors of the crew cab.

Chowbutt,

You are correct. To keep the original style of the truck, an internal cage would be much better.

I do have one factor that "might" make me do it external. When I swap engines next year, the Cummins exhaust & air intake need supports. Right now they are on that radiator bracket. But with a crew cab I don't want to plumb the air intake and exhaust under the truck and out the back (where the radiator will be). I would prefer to keep the exhaust stack up front, and the intake stack up front on the other side. If I do that, an external A-pillar could serve as both exhaust/air intake supports and mirror supports. The air intake is kind of like a snorkel. It has an air scoop up high and feeds into some kind of oil-filled air filter. I haven't looked at it closely yet.

Otherwise, the jesusgatos floating cage sounds pretty good.
 
jesusgatos

jesusgatos

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No reason why you couldn't build an internal/external cage. I had to do that on my Tacoma (put the B-pillar outside/behind the cab) because there wasn't enough room inside the cab. But please-please-please think twice before building an all-external rollcage. Look at where you would run those tubes inside the cab. There's plenty of room. Especially if you're building an extended-cab. The bracing across the back wall of the cab is the only area where I'm concerned about things getting tight. But that's just going to require some careful planning.

If you really want to build something that would support a gnarly roofrack, I would still suggest keeping the tubes inside the cab at the A/B/C pillars, then pierce through the top of the cab to make your roofrack. Keeping those vertical tubes inside the cab would look a LOT cleaner, and would also allow you to do some internal bracing that wouldn't be possible/practical with an all-external cage. In any case, I hope you're planning on tying the rollcage into the body. Even if you build an external rollcage, you don't want to let those two things move independently.
 
Unforgiven

Unforgiven

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If I do it internal, what size of DOM should I use? And should it be multi-tube for added strength? The very rear C-pillar is no problem to cross brace. I don't care if it ends up with a star or hexagon or something way back there. I'm only going to put a bench seat back there for the occasional extra people. Likewise, I don't care if the roof is crossed up with various tubes. But on A & B the angular bracings would have to be minimal. Otherwise it would feel like a stock-car interior which defeats the purpose of a crew cab.

I'm curious to see your roll bar once you weld it up.
 
jesusgatos

jesusgatos

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I took some rough dimensions (old cab w/ softtop) and I'm working on some drawings to show you right now. There's not a whole lot of room to go with anything much bigger than 3" diameter tubing, so that's what I'm modeling with right now. I'm going to have to pay to have the tubing bent because my bender/dies only go up to 2". Wouldn't be a bad idea at all to double-up the B-pillar hoops. You might not have room to do that at the C-pillar though, depending on how long you make the cab, and how far back you mount the rear seats. You should also be able to cross-brace the B-pillar with some tubing that will be minimally intrusive. The horizontal crossbars make a great place to anchor shoulder harnesses, and you would gain a LOT of strength by adding an X at the B/C-pillars. You use a lot smaller diameter tubing for all of the internal cross-bracing, and that would help to make it seem less intrusive. Really all we're talking about is how it looks anyway, because none of these tubes should interfere with anything or encroach on any of the occupants.
 
jesusgatos

jesusgatos

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Here are a few rough sketches to show you guys what I've been thinking about. Not really any more complicated than a rollcage that you might build for a Jeep. Just a little bigger tubing. If any of you want to download these CAD files to take a look at the 3D models, you can open/view them with a free program called eDrawings (download it here). It's made by Solidworks, so it's totally safe to download and use. You can spin the 3D models around, take measurements, make notes, comments, etc. It can be really helpful in collaborative discussions like this, where it's sometimes hard to visualize what someone it trying to communicate without 'seeing' it.


Version 1 is about as simple as it gets. Every rollcage starts with a good perimeter cage, and they con't have to be complicated. You could even connect the A-pillar hoop to the B-pillar hoop with straight tubes, but that would eat into precious headroom. Even a simple rollcage like this should provide some measure of additional safety in a low-speed flop.

V1 screen capture (click - picture)

V1 Solidworks file (right click -> download / save as)


Version 2 just shows a more elegant method of joining tubes. Notching tubes to make joints like these is VERY time consuming, but it creates a super strong with clean, flowing lines, no matter what angle you're looking at it from. Not sure how much that really matters to anyone in a Deuce, where you're not likely to ever even see it (unless you're running around topless). Might look out of place on a MV, almost too pretty. But still, probably my favorite way to make these types of joints.

V2 screen capture (click - picture)

V2 Solidworks file (right click -> download / save as)


Version 3 is where I've left-off (continuation of Version 2). Just starting to think about cross-bracing. The problem is, I hate compromises. I'd like to build a race-quality cage, but I don't want to make this vehicle any more impractical than it already is, and I don't want to completely destroy the look of the stock interior. So I'm going to settle for 'better than nothing' in this case. I might make a simple bolt-in cage, but I'll probably end up cutting into the body and the dash just a little bit, so I can make the cage fit tighter and look cleaner. Either way, I'm going to try to keep the visible tubing to a minimum. Thinking about cutting the plates out of the door openings though, and replacing them with tubing kind of like what I've shown here in Version 3. Could always plate-over them again, and make it look more stock-ish...

V3 screen capture (click - picture)

V3 Solidworks file (right click -> download / save as)


I'll post more as I work through this.
 
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jesusgatos

jesusgatos

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By the way, could one of the moderators please move this to the 'modification' forum? No reason we need to continue riling-up the purists and the guys who insist that these things are safe enough as-is...
 
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