Narrowing a body....? Er.

Alrighty. A body man I am not. Luckily this won't have to look amazing. I'm only trying to capture the 'theme' of a MJ, if you will.



Anywho, I've been given the oppertunity to pick up a MJ cab that is otherwise going to the scrapper. Somebody needed a trailor, and figured that bucking the back half off a MJ would work peachy.


I want to take about 1' out of the middle of it. From front to back. That's a ball park figure - I haven't hammered out how bad the elbow room will be yet. Or the foot/pedal room, but I think I know how I'm going to deal with that. And a cage has to be tied mostly inside of it, so there's a bunch of tacking pipes and banging my head on them until I figure out the details.


The basic plan of attack would be to figure out a bracing system; which is really where I need some ideas/experience. Then cut the entire floor out from the pinch seam at the rockers (or part of the rockers). The cut out the firewall pretty much in its entirety, or maybe just the required strip down the middle for a first pass. Then through the cowl, windshield frame, roof, back of the cab...


Which leaves you with two entirely seperate peice unless your braces are holding them together. Which is screaming for them to twist/warp, and refuse to re-align for welding. I know how to weld body panels together, I don't worry about that too much. But tips are always good.


But I really need an idea on a bracing system that'll allow me to sandwhich the two peices back together after being cut. And hopefully have them still aligned. It has been suggested I use a bunch of telescoping pipes, I might even be able to do some scary stuff with adjusting collars, and simply use quite a few of them to avoid warpage issues.


I'm still a little scared the roof won't line up very good. I might be able to take some .040 aluminum and roll it to match the curve of the roof decently. Hmm, might have to buy some clekos then.


Oh yeah... It ain't going back on a factory unibody.



So, any thoughts/suggestions? Or just blank stares? Maybe some name calling?

I have no advice whatsoever but it sounds like a pretty fun project.
what's the advantages to something like this?
make sure to keep putting up updates and pictures!
good luck,
Jim

While many people say 'wider is better' they're really only talking about the vehicles track in relation to the body.


With this I can run 61" axles but still have the tires decently well out of the body. Which means the tight stuff won't be a huge deal, and I won't get the cab hung up on trees anymore. Hopefully. And I should also have quite a bit better visibility of my tires. Which helps when you drive like me (poorly).



It's be easier to build a tube buggy. But I don't want that here. Getting rained/snowed on and freezing your ass off constantly isn't my idea of fun.

tack bars (3/4 or so) to all stucturall areas on each side tack them together to create a solid structure (2 solid structures)and with some rolers and channel make a jig so you can roll the sides together and lock them in place
then tack and adjust as needed and skip around to avoid warping as fitment will be affected hugely