TJ cage and a few other upgrades

jeeptj99 · Apr 5, 2015

Have been debating on starting a thread or not but finally figured i would since we are all nice here now.

Started in 2007 went riding in Tellico with a guy my dad works with 3 weeks later i bought my TJ. When i picked it up she was purdy, never seen anything but the mall. She sat on 33's and had 2" body lift and the budget boost coil spacer things. Went riding one time and was instantly hooked. Crazy thing turned good the next Monday after wheeling i was rear ended by a Z71 and totaled the Jeep, bought it back from insurance and used the left over money from fixing it to buy a 3" lift kit. Started breaking axles (shocker) so upgraded the Dana 35 to a Super 35 kit. Bent those shafts and kept breaking u-joints in that beastly Dana 30 so in 2013 I sold those axles, bought some RCV's, a HP Dana 44 and a Ford 8.8, 3 linked the front and upgraded the 8.8 to a super 88. All that was going great but i felt i was being held back because i was always worried about rolling it over. So pulled the Jeep back in and started tearing it down again.

After taking the old cage out we started bending tube and today got the two main hoops done. Would have gotten more done but this was our first time using this bender, actually it was my first time ever bending tube.

So what do you guys think?

jeeptj99 · Apr 5, 2015

Here is the look that i am going for, I am going to put my own spin on it and change some things to make it mine but this is the general idea of what i am going for.

jp fan · Apr 5, 2015

Looks like you have a great start, looks good

kushKrawlin · Apr 5, 2015

I agree. I like it. I have wanted to ask before , but with the cage just bolting down like that (if it's not tied in frame) do they hold up if a bad tumble happens ? Gotta be safer than the stock one, just always wondered bout that

jeeptj99 · Apr 5, 2015

kushKrawlin said:
I agree. I like it. I have wanted to ask before , but with the cage just bolting down like that (if it's not tied in frame) do they hold up if a bad tumble happens ? Gotta be safer than the stock one, just always wondered bout that

I'm going to tie mine into the frame at the front and back and in the middle tie it into the body mount.

peanut · Apr 6, 2015

looks good i see you have a bradley county tag from cleveland my self

jeeptj99 · Apr 6, 2015

Well with Easter yesterday we didn't make leaps and bounds but we did get a good bit done.

Got both spreader bars done and notched

Also got both vertical supports done and tacked into place. These were tricky with the bends and the way the notch was (for my simple mind anyway) but we got it done

Here's another random picture for you guys, when I was about 20 and crawling the malls and easy trails I went through a phase where i was putting random ass stickers on the jeep. One though has managed to stay and i still laugh at it to this day. Probably going to get it blown up and put across the hood once I high line the front and comp cut the back.

jeeptj99 · Apr 6, 2015

peanut said:
looks good i see you have a bradley county tag from cleveland my self

No joke? I just moved here last year. Bought me a house on the south end.

Thanks for the compliments and feedback guys.

jeeptj99 · Sep 27, 2015

I'm apparently horrible at keeping a build thread updated. Got the cage done before 4th of July. Have been riding a few times. Anyway here's some pictures of the cage done when we went riding at Rausch Creek last month.

I sliced the sidewall on my tire winching someone out of rock creek is the reason i'm running an all terrain here

Mills5054 · Sep 28, 2015

Anymore pics of the cage itself?

Eddyj · Sep 29, 2015

Cage turned out nice. How are your axles holding up?

jeeptj99 · Sep 29, 2015

Eddyj said:
Cage turned out nice. How are your axles holding up?

So far so good. I'm only running 35's at the moment so that helps. The front has RCV's and the rear i put the super 88 kit in so hopefully axles wont be a problem.