After a rather painstaking session of welding everything up, I've got a few shots ready to go. It isn't finished, however it only requires a few more gussets, welds, etc. The pics are a bit small, sorry.

The front of the cage for the time being. The dash bar will be added later along with the grab handles. http://home.attbi.com/~jcatch222/XJCage/Front1.jpg

A shot of the roof...
http://home.attbi.com/~jcatch222/XJCage/BC3.jpg

The connection of the B and C pillars. I'll be adding a tube to triangulate this section shortly. I ran out and haven't had a chance to get more.
http://home.attbi.com/~jcatch222/XJCage/Rear1.jpg

The gratuitous ego shot; me welding in the cage...
http://home.attbi.com/~jcatch222/XJCage/Me5.jpg

The rear hoop was the biggest PITA. Due to the mount of the spring hangers and the gas tank, I had to go this stupid route for the time being.
http://home.attbi.com/~jcatch222/XJCage/Rear3.jpg

The floor plates are welded in place due to a few limitations. The underside of the floor is going to be backed with 1/4" plate and tied into the subframe that is next on the docket, so strength isn't a concern there. Hopefully that will get done before mid August.

And now the problems I need suggestions for...
As you will notice in this pic, the tranny tunnel encroaches on my driver's side seat quite a bit. I'm ordering the 5pt RCI's from Summit next week and I need to figure out how to attach them. The shoulder belts attach to the cage via the shoulder bar, however the lap belts are going to be a problem due to the tunnel. I wanted to run tube along the side of the seat and tunnel, but it is too narrow to get anything of strength in there. So, the next plan is to order the shoulder belts roll bar mount and the lap belts floor mount. Then, connect a piece of 1/4" plate to the underside of the seat and tie that into the cage, and weld two tabs for the belt mounts as far toward the edge on their respective sides as possible. How does this sound? From looking at the pic, does anybody have any other suggestions? Oh, BTW, the tube running from the A and B pillars at the bottom along side the seat has a diagonal on it now that I didn't get a shot of.
http://home.attbi.com/~jcatch222/XJCage/Seat1.jpg

Special thanks to Matt who let me use his bender and taught me a few bending tricks, as well as helped with some of the hoop design.

Let me know what you think, especially about the seats and harness mouting.

Looks good man.. I wish to shit I could do my own the way I want it..... but i dont have or know anybody with a bender.. or an experienced welder..... so I'd get raped by the price ... but I'll end up with something....

Looks good ! That sure looks like a $hit load of work. Have a

:beer:

Looks good. Maybe the best xj cage I have seen.
Good job.:beer:

I don't know if you can do this in the XJ, but tie the middle hoop into the front hoop by adding a section by the doors near the floor. Then tie those 2 in together with a section that goes over the transmission tunnel much like a crossmember. Bend it around the tunnel and you can then mount the seats and lapbelts onto that.

What happened to the X's in the roof :flipoff2: - seriously though looks real good, have you gotten the dash bar in yet? I hope you got your electrical hat on pretty soon so we can hit the trail some time this year - ya gotta put some pressure on me :eek: I can't wait to see it in person, good job :D

Matt

Notching angles are a bitch huh...

Yea yea, I whimped out on the X's for the roof. I thought long and hard about it and looked at tons of designs. I decided that running the spreaders straight back would work just fine, and that the middle two would give me an excellent mount for my overhead console that I'll be building soon. So, why did I drop out on the Xs? Well as I was fitting them in place they went directly over the driver and passenger's heads and even when just tacked for fitment I kept smacking my noggin on them :flipoff2:

you have any plans for the roof - I am still contemplating headliner replacement ideas... And not comming up with much

Matt

Yes and no. The front hoop goes right up to the roof and is a very tight fit. Let's put it this way...I installed it with a rubber mallet. So there is no chance of getting a piece of paper in between the tube and the roof, much less a headliner. I'll probably slide the headliner in up to the front hoop and then chop the first 3 inches of it off and then velcro that to the roof. Assuming the headliner goes back in at all.

I was thinking of getting some closed cell foam or urethane, or what ever since I had to chop mine into 5 pieces the fabric will not stay up, the foam just crumbles and take what ever glue you put on it down with the fabric...

Matt

Looks very cool, would love to have a similar cage in my XJ.

I like the look of the cage without the headliner, but maybe thats just me. Or it could be that i ripped my headliner out and am too lazy to put a new one in, so anythng w/o a headliner looks "good" to me. :)

Seriously though, it does look badarse, lots of work Im sure.

looks sweet I like it :eek:

Did a little more work today. I ended up making mounts for the harnesses and to tie the seats into the cage. No pics right now, but I'll post them later once I get my digital camera back. Basically I added crossmembers fore and aft of the seats. One side is attached to a plate that is welded to the tranny tunnel, and the other is notched and attaches to the horizontal tube running from the A to B hoops along the bottom. I'll let you know how it turns out when I put the harnesses in place.

When you've got a top on there, how the hell do you get a decent weld all the way around the tube?

Actually that was a real bitch. I just welded as far around the tube as possible and when the time came for the portion covered by the roof, I used a trick that Tin Bender shared with me. I removed the nozzle on the MIG and taped up the tip to the hole. Then I ran flux cored wire and let it rip. Some of the tubes have a minor gap right at the roof line, but not enough to worry about (very very small) and I can't do anything anyway.