• NAXJA is having its 18th annual March Membership Drive!!!
    Everyone who joins or renews during March will be entered into a drawing!
    More Information - Join/Renew
  • Welcome to the new NAXJA Forum! If your password does not work, please use "Forgot your password?" link on the log-in page. Please feel free to reach out to [email protected] if we can provide any assistance.

How much cash do I need?

bhicks

NAXJA Forum User
Location
Forest Falls, CA
I finally decided I want to take the next step and add a full cage to my ride. Since it's no longer a daily driver it seems like the next logical thing. I have been learning to weld and have a few buddies willing to help me with the difficult stuff. I already borrowed a pipe bender and MIG welder. Now for the questions. What would be a good DOM diameter and thickness for a rock crawler? I wont be doing any racing, so I don't need some crazy strong cage. How much should I plan to spend on all the tubing? Any advice would be greatly appreciated.
 
You may be better off buying a cage kit like T&J's Crawler kit or D&C kits and then adding to it. You may be able to buy straight sticks of tubing cheaper, but if you screw up a bend then you a have wasted (to a certain extent) piece of tubing. If you are inexpierienced with using a bender the learning curve might be a bit expensive.
 
1 1/2" DOM runs about $3.00 a foot.
I just bought 120' for my cage, don't know if that will be enough though.

Thanks for the info. I already sketched out my design on a 3-D modeling software to get a guestimate on length needed. I used 1.5" diameter in my design, so I am glad that you are saying 1.5" is good. I don't need to redo my design. It looks like I am at about 130-140 feet. At my guess, that means I will be spending about $500 on metal. I am adding about 15% beyond what I need since I assume I will be masking a few mistakes.
 
You may be better off buying a cage kit like T&J's Crawler kit or D&C kits and then adding to it. You may be able to buy straight sticks of tubing cheaper, but if you screw up a bend then you a have wasted (to a certain extent) piece of tubing. If you are inexpierienced with using a bender the learning curve might be a bit expensive.

The only cage kits I have found are ALL internal cages. I am planning on building a primarily exo cage. I plan to have a few cross bars inside but nothing more. I am pretty sure a exo cage kit does not exist. I am completely inexperienced on the bender but the owner will be there assisting me, or maybe it will be more like me assisting him.
 
If there are any guys out there that have built an exo cage, I would greatly appreciate it if you could post up some pics of it. The more I see the better idea I can get on how good or bad my design is. I have already collected quite a few pics from Jeepforum and a couple from old threads on here but I figured the more ideas I see the better I can design my cage.
 
whatever you do, mock it up with tape or PVC first!

I thought I found an EXO "kit" online a while back. Maybe it was the C-ROK site or Poison Spider.

Good luck!
 
heres the back half of an exo cage i saw at a 4wp show in my town the front comes down and ties into the front of the slider and makes a front fender bend and ties into the front bumper, i'll see if i can find any more pics of this jeep

IMG_0559-1.jpg

exocage2.jpg

best side view i could find of it
exocage3.jpg
 
Last edited:
croks are sexy but if you think about it, after you buy the bumpers and the sliders and the cage your looking at over 2g's easy. like with anything else, you cant just have one thing with out a few other things to go with it
 
i know a good roll cage guy if you need one. just got mine done. pm me if interested
 
I don't want to start the dom vs hrew debate but I have had the chance to work with plenty of both and I will never use HREW for anything anymore, it dents/crushes way too easily in comparison, just going to the metal yard the dom sticks are all intact while most of the hrew sticks are dented on the ends, not to mention I have given both the "hammer" test and was amazed at the difference. It takes way too much time and effort to build stuff out of tubing, to me it is a no brainer. You can tell the differences just bending/cutting/notching the stuff. I would not have a problem using braceing/traingulation from hrew as long as there is no chance for impact denting.

good luck Brad!
 
I don't want to start the dom vs hrew debate but I have had the chance to work with plenty of both and I will never use HREW for anything anymore, it dents/crushes way too easily in comparison, just going to the metal yard the dom sticks are all intact while most of the hrew sticks are dented on the ends, not to mention I have given both the "hammer" test and was amazed at the difference. It takes way too much time and effort to build stuff out of tubing, to me it is a no brainer. You can tell the differences just bending/cutting/notching the stuff. I would not have a problem using braceing/traingulation from hrew as long as there is no chance for impact denting.

good luck Brad!

Absolute truth here.
 
croks are sexy but if you think about it, after you buy the bumpers and the sliders and the cage your looking at over 2g's easy. like with anything else, you cant just have one thing with out a few other things to go with it

Now that I have seen the CROK cage kit I am pretty sure it will not work. Thanks to the mad skills of Skullver I already have some kick ass front and rear bumpers and some nice rock rails. None of it would work with the CROK kit. I would have to do a lot of modifications. At that point, I might as well just build my own cage that ties my bumpers, rails, plates, and frame stiffiners together in a more cohesive way.
 
I REALLY appreciate everyone's comments and pics. Chris I will definately be taking your advice and going with the DOM tubing. I am rather sure that I will be using 1.5" but I am not sure on the wall thickness yet. If anyone is still out there with some more pics of exo cages, I would love to see them.
 
Last edited:




Click on the pic to go to my webshots album
 
Back
Top