Caged XJs

[Phil]

A comment I saw elsewhere made me consider.

What's the longest a caged XJ has stayed "nice"?

The comment was regarding an exocage as a step towards a buggy. Then I thought that, for XJs, an internal cage just leads to a small buggy and an exocage leads to a big buggy.

So what's the longest an internal or external cage XJ has gone, being wheeled, while staying clean, straight, full bodied?

 

[89eliminator]

i think it ultimately depends on where you are wheelin. around here, its mud and trees. cage or not, its tough to stay out of the trees. any wheeled XJ/MJ around here isnt straight anymore.

 

[cracked-butt]

Gotta agree with 89 on this. Internal or external , if you're wheelin hard it isn't gonna stay nice or straight. If you keep it as a (relatively easy) trail rig... It shouldn't be a problem.
I.E. Taking it out camping with the family, and hitting a trail or two with the kids, sure no problem. Take it to Moab and do some serious rock crawling.... Nope, forget it. Slam it into s couple trees, done. Hit the mud n stomp on it or drop in a monster engine upping the power... There goes the "frame".

 

[jrowell]

Mine has been caged about 3 years now. Johnson Valley, Moab, Rubicon, Swamp lake... It's still pretty straight. I try not to tare it up. It's got some battle scars though...

 

[Hypoid]

My Mrs. wore the "nice" off, before I got to have my way with our XJ... And it still is not caged.

 

[rockclimber]

Eric's rig has stayed pretty much full bodied and clean for quite a while. he's had a cage for years.

 

[foxwar71]

Cutting off pretty much all the sheet metal/pillars, doing tube, and then skinning with XJ sheet metal has kept mine decent. Keeps the "clean" XJ look and body lines, yet holds up good enough. 4 rolls/flops and mine still looks good, although a couple panels have dents in between where the tubes are