1999

As I've made more and more mods to my Jeep, I've found myself in scarier and scarier situations. I've had a couple of close calls, and (knock on wood) I have a feeling I'll need a more protective cage than what comes stock from Jeep. That "sports bar" just isn't going to cut it.

I would also like to be able to lower the windshield on occasion. If you do that with the stock bar you lose the protection to the front seats; the windshield has stayed up so far.

There are two cages online that I've looked at. One is a very nice install on Jon Blackledge's TJ. He ran the cage through the dash and close into the firewall.

The other cage I've been interested in belongs to Brad Kilby. His is the design I decided to work with.

I did some checking around and decided that I'd like Wayne Hanson to do the work. Wayne has been building cages and bumpers for over 14 years. He has experience with everything from Sandrails to Suburbans. He's a perfectionist, and it shows in his work. I talked to Wayne a few times before bringing my TJ down for an install. We agreed that I would leave my Jeep for a couple of weeks. Wayne plans on selling a weld-in kit for the TJ and he is using mine to set up the jigs or patterns or whatever.

• Maintain the main hoop, but reinforce with welds and gussets instead of the bolts holding it together.
• Add a brace accross the upper rear corner between the rear side hoops.
• Add diagonals from the intersection of the main hoop and rear hoop down to the rear corner.
• Replace the front side bars with .120 tubing and weld it to the main hoop.
• Add a brace down the floor from the top (route around, but close to, the dash).
• Add a top bar behind the windshield header.
• Add a dash bar.
• Add two spreaders from the front bar to the main hoop. The CB will mount between them.
• Here's the drawing of it.

I will maintain full use of the softop and soundbar. I will most likely need to remove the cage if I want to pull the dash, but I'm not worried about it.

It will come unpainted, so I will need to figure that out. My current plan is to clean it up and spray it with Black Hammerite. I have no plans to cover it with padding, but may change my mind down the (off)road.

The big debate for TJ owners looking to put in a full cage seems to center around the dash. Some go inside it, some around it. Running the cage through the dash is a clean install, and it doesn't take away any leg clearance for getting in and out. I'm not concerned about either - I've been in Brad's and it's not an issue.

These are the reasons I chose not to go through the dash:

Sight lines

The TJ already has a nasty blind spot because of the large size of the A pillar. It's made worse when using the soft door uppers. If I want to watch where I'm going when turning left I need to lean forward so I can see out the windshield. I believe this would be true for various sized drivers.

Running the cage inside the dash and along the firewall puts the upright support against the glass and increases the size of the blind spot. By running it "out front" of the dash I keep it in an already blocked line of sight.

Windshield support

In gaining a cage, I don't want to lose the upper windshield support brackets (Jon Blackledge doesn't have these on his cage). I know that earlier Jeeps don't have the upper supports, but they don't have coil springs either. Times change and I don't want to find out the hard way that the windshield needs the upper bolts at 65 mph.

Quite frankly, I think that it would have looked stupid to bring the cage back at enough of an angle to be able to put those brackets on. It would conflict with the line of the windshield and of the door opening. IMHO.

Develop a kit for other TJ owners

Hanson plans on selling a weld-in kit to TJ owners. Granted, anyone thinking they need to weld a front cage in can probably figure out how to take the dash apart. But there is no guarantee that every TJ will have the same parts in the same place behind the dash. Think of all the subtle differences between the 97s and 99s....

There will be no such troubles by routing the supports against the outside of the dash.

I picked my Jeep up from Wayne on April 15th, and as soon as I got home I took some pictures. It still needs paint, but you can see the new tubes (not blue) and the way it fits in the Jeep.

I am extremely pleased with the work Wayne did on my cage. The welds are very clean and everything fits well. Getting in and out of the Jeep is very easy and the sight lines are wide open. I brought it over to my friend Don's and we tried out his hard door on it - fits perfectly. The window handle clears the cage, so there is no need for something as doomed to fail as power windows.

After thinking about it for about a week, I decided the best way to paint it would be to pull the cage out of the Jeep. I also needed to wait for a weekend I had open to complete the project - this can't be done in a day. This also gave me time to decide I didn't want any changes made or pieces added.

I spent a couple of hours on Friday afternoon pulling off the seat belts, sound bar, soft top brackets and whatever else was attached. I dropped the windshield and removed all the mounting hardware. Then I attacked it with steel wool and a disc sander to prepare it for paint.

That evening, Seth came by after work and helped me lift it out. This didn't go as easy as planned - the front feet are wedged under the door sills. There isn't a lot of room to wiggle the cage around because of the dash and the center hoop mounts. We grunted and swore at eachother for about twenty minutes until it popped free. A few scratches to the inside tub, and a slight bend in the door sill protector. No big deal as I plan on DuraBak-ing the whole tub this summer. The sill guard pounded flat with a hammer.

It may have gone a lot smoother if I had thought to remove the front seats. I pulled them out for the re-install.

The two of us were able to lift it clear of the Jeep and set it on a big drop cloth. I then continued to sand it until I was satisfied it would hold the paint.

Saturday morning I grabbed my painting clothes and a respirator and went back to the warehouse. I put plastic up over everything as a makeshift painting booth. My choice of paint is black Hammerite. In a rattle can. At the advice of friends, I picked up a trigger handle for the can from Ace hardware - $3 well spent. No more finger fatigue!

It took me two and a half cans to complete the first coat. I was getting worried I'd run out of paint. Hammerite needs to be reapplied within 4 hours, or you have to wait 6 weeks for a full cure. None of the local shops carry it, so I decided to press on. I managed to get 3 more coats and 5 coats on the new Hanson bumper with 3 cans. I evn have some left for other projects.

The painted cage. All in all I think it looks great. There are a couple of thin spots and a few drips. I can't imagine that's the worst it will look over time...

Sunday morning I went back to install the cage. I didn't have any help coming until sometime in the afternoon, so I got creative. I built a pallet rack over the top of the Jeep to use as a hoist anchor. I anchored the rack with a strap off the front bumper and crossmember under my spare tire. I then used a chain and come-along to lift the cage over the Jeep.

The only problem getting it back in was negotiating the door sills. But this time I had gravity on my side. Once I had it in position, I basically kicked it into place - one good hit and it dropped the last few inches. No damage to the roll bar and only a couple more scratches to the bed ot the Jeep. I managed to break a reverse light when the pallet rack hit it, but they're cheap.

It was only 12:00, so I had plenty of time to get everything else installed.

I bolted down the feet of the cage and put the windshield up. No dice. Because the cage was built in place, I needed to align it exactly where it was. Working alone, I needed to use a Hi-Lift to get everything in the right place. I was really glad to be using an impact wrench.

Once the cage was aligned, the windshield almost fit perfectly - took a little flexing to get the first bolt started. The rest went in just fine. BTW - I replaced all the factory torx hardware with hex cap bolts. If you do the same, you should know that the 8 bolts that normally hold the side bars are metric. So are the bolts that hold the soundbar and the soft top bracket.

I put the seats back in and reattached the seat belts. It was done. Mostly.

A frequently asked question among TJ owners is where to mount the CB. When I decided on a roll cage, I planned on mounting the CB up between the spreaders. My original thought was to mount it at the front, but after listening to a friend's advice I decided to mount it at the back facing forward. The strongest arguement is having the speaker over my head - I could never hear the speaker at freeway speeds the way I used to have it.

I used a piece of cardboard to make a template - it's a lot easier to start over when it's just paper... I cut the shape out of a piece of 1/8" diamond plate aluminum with a circular saw and a dremel tool. I then used a big hammer and a couple of forms (read: broom handle) to bend the edges down around the roll bar. I also bent the front lip down to give it a cleaner look. A few coats of Hammerite and it was ready to install.

After screwing it to the roll bar, I mounted the CB underneath. It's placed so that the mic has plenty of room, and it's proteced from the elements.

Nice fit.

Completed.

I made a wiring harness to fit inside the soundbar. The connection at one end plugs right into the CB. The other end is right next to the stock soundbar connection. The wires are loomed with the rest of the soundbar wires and go to the hot auxilary fuse box under the dash.

The antennae wire goes down the passenger side roll bar and along the inside of the body to the back corner. The antennae is mounted to the Canyon City tire carrier with a bracket I made. I was extremely suprised to get a SWR of 1.3:1. Not bad!!

I'm very pleased with the way it turned out. It looks and works great. On the way home, I turned the CB on to CH 17 while doing 70 on the freeway. I was able to tune it and listen in to the truckers. Even better, there were no big rigs in site.