exo-cages

[meangreenjeep]

What I'm thinking about is a "system" if you will, which can be bought and installed in sections, as your need/experience/journey to becoming "hardcore" (god I hate that stupid word) progresses. It would have the ability to be built upon itself, and added to, and replace "sections" as they are needed ("hardcore", hehehe).

Remember, unless you are tumbling down the entire side of a mountain, your chance of having a life threatening roll is MUCH worse if it happens at freeway speed...and I don't see us all rushing out to cage the inside of our rigs for that. Why? Because the factory engineers already built one for us!! We just need to keep it from getting creased and folded from sudden impacts with rocks. For 90% of the XJ wheelers out there, interior bracing is not needed. Notice I'm not saying that interior bracing is bad, or useless, or anything like that(I know that I even admitted that I will be doing just that to mine soon somewhere in this thread)...I'm saying that most don't need something that severe, when the body already has all this well thought out structure to it. Just protect what's there.

I just hope I can design and market an economical do it yourself system like I am trying to describe before someone else does.

 

[Beezil]

theres just no such thing as "needing just a little bit of cage" since no one has any control of how hard they might roll.

It is ridiculous to assume that anyones possible roll will be the best case senario.

if you've gotten to the point where you are thinking you need a cage, then dammit, design and build a cage FOR THE WORST CASE SENARIO!

 

[meangreenjeep]

Beezil, do you have a cage in any of your street cars, DD's, family cars?

 

[MaXJohnson]

I'm not a fan of exo's. I think if you want to do the kind of extreme wheeling that requires that degree of protection, maybe an XJ isn't the right vehicle to base it on. That is unless you build a tube buggy and skin it with XJ sheet metal or you have plenty of time and money to prove how far you can take the XJ design.

That being said, fatwreck's pic of the black XJ is one of the better looking exo-cages that I've seen. Build one like it. Tie into the drip rail at multiple points along each side. Maybe run some plate from the side uprights to the door pillars.

Then, on the inside, run a tube behind the front seats from a plate on the rocker rail diagionally to the opposite roof sil and another going the opposite way to form an X. Make sure the plates attaching to the channel sections at the rocker panel and roof sil spread the load.Do it again towards the rear. That's about all the interior structure you would need to have a killer exo-cage. The weak point would be the A pillars. Hard to put a X's pr diagonals there without screwing with driver visibility.

I could learn to love an exo built like that.
fatwreck's exo + meangreenjeep's tie-in's + Beezil's "build it to handle the task" attitude. :cheers:

 

[MaXJohnson]

By the way, meangreeny. You've mentioned how the XJ handles 2 3/4 violent barrel rolls and maintains it structral intregrity. There have been may pic on this forum and others of lesser rolls where the roof didn't do so good. And, not just the ones that smack a big arse boulder. It's good that your's held up, but there's no reason to believe that your damage is typical.

 

[Beezil]

no, of course i don't have a cage in my durango, because I think the odds of me rolling over aren't great enough.

If I thought they were, and thought I needed a cage, I wouldn't build an exocage before I would build a solid interior cage first.

I see what line of logic you were working on, but the analogy was facile.

good debate though......

 

[xjaddiction]

This thread is great!

What are the dangers involved with a DD interior cage like TOR's (tennessee off road), in an on road type accident. What I'm thinking about is side impact (even front impact) and the closeness of an interior cage with an un-helmeted head. Is padding enough? Or do you need a 4 to 5 point harness to keep you in tight?

Greddy

 

[What Rd]

OMG almost 3 full revs violently down a VERY steep climb, with no doors...and I'm just "lucky". Whatever. Do you drive your XJ on the freeway? Counting on luck to save your life if you roll? Or, do you think that maybe all those high paid engineers were onto something

Whatever is right. You rolled and came out of it impressed with your Jeep's structural integrity and some ideas about how to build on it (or off of it). So do it. But don't try to kid yourself into thinking you weren't DAMN lucky. I rolled from a slow speed, first end over end and then sideways, so many times I lost count and have spent the last 21 years as a paraplegic - I wasn't so lucky. Whether you'll be lucky the next time is not something you can predict or control. You can prepare, sure. Control is an illusion, my friend.
As far as the engineers who designed the XJ, I'll bet you money they never intended their wonderful unibody design to withstand roll-overs or any other catastrophic force without deforming and thereby dissipating some of those forces. That's the way all automobiles have been designed since about the forties.



So far this has been fairly flame free...let's keep it like that please. I have been cruising this board for 4 years now...I just don't make lots of comments, til now [/B][/QUOTE]


I wasn't attempting to flame you when I posted originally - and am not now. It seems you're just a little defensive of your idea and may have misinterpreted my attempt at a light-hearted means of pointing out that you're going to go ahead and do what you have in mind regardless of what is said here - so do it. You might just get lucky again - perhaps even so lucky as to never find out how well an internally unsupported exo will hold up under various scenarios. I never meant to insult you - but you'd do well to be a little less sensitive.

 

[vintagespeed]

If you're looking for a good example of an internal/external functional cage 'system' check out Goatman's rig. Not only is everything else awesome & functional, the new inny/outy cage rocks! He DID cut some holes to tie it all together but I dont think he's worried about that.

 

[KarmirXJ]

check out Goatman's rig. Not only is everything else awesome & functional, the new inny/outy cage rocks!

Well??? we got 4 pages so for and only have 3 dinky pics.... Common people, WE WANNA SEE PICS!:rattle: Pics are worth a 1000 words, so slow down the chit:lecture:chat and speed up the drawings...

 

[meangreenjeep]

I wasn't attempting to flame you when I posted originally - and am not now. It seems you're just a little defensive of your idea and may have misinterpreted my attempt at a light-hearted means of pointing out that you're going to go ahead and do what you have in mind regardless of what is said here - so do it. You might just get lucky again - perhaps even so lucky as to never find out how well an internally unsupported exo will hold up under various scenarios. I never meant to insult you - but you'd do well to be a little less sensitive.

Sorry. I'll try to tone it down.

 

[MaXJohnson]

Sorry. I'll try to tone it down.

a tip o' the hat to you, meanie greenie

 

[vintagespeed]

Here's a link to Richard's album.

http://www.fototime.com/ftweb/bin/ft.dll/pictures?userid={C9B50706-F7D6-410E-B99C-36111C35FAC9}&albumid={4CD6D08F-A20A-4CB4-B4F5-B8DB4AAFBBA5}&inv=383E99C5633A988

We should all be so good.