Project "Mud Bandit" dedicated mud bogger

Picked up a strap kit Monday for the front driveshaft and installed it this morning before I went to work. this evening I'll mount the tube bender in the garage so Thurs I can work on the cage.

HMMM cage thurs Mikes Sat

wish i could say it will be ready to run by sat but it just isn't going to happen. list is still too long and i don't want to be the one that pulls up to the line having forgot about something and step on the gas only to produce castastrophic failure at the line.
Tube bender is mounted in the garage now.

I was jus bustin u ass we are heading to mikes fri nite to work on the pit and test it

Hey Bill thanks for letting me get some cage fab time in. If I can cut out early again next week I will try to get out to help you weld it up and get some of the other parts bent and fit.

lookimg good
how are you doing your through body to frame tubes ?( removable ,slug,etc..)

night and day bending this tube aint it?

nice work

SPP YJ wrote:

lookimg good
how are you doing your through body to frame tubes ?( removable ,slug,etc..)

Plan is to put plates down where the cage meets the body and do the same underneath with the tubes running from the frame to the underneath plates. So basically "sandwich" the body and run 4 bolts at each location like I did on the YJ. Only problem I see with this is with it being a fiberglass body and not sure the body won't crack or crush under pressure. I'd be open to any suggestions. I'd rather run it straight down through to a frame mount and bypass the body all together but then I'd loose the ability to remove the cage if i ever needed to.

Looking good as always!! Wish I could have been there fuckers!

I can't believe how fast you work bill. I haven't enven looked at my jeep since bigdogs.

What we did for my cj5 is to run the frame bars up through the tub about 4" then we put a solid slug in the lower (frame bar) and welded it in then we built the upper part of cage off of that and drilled two holes in each connection 180 degree out and bolted using grade 8 bolts. This helped a lot of things
#1 if you ever get a side load on the cage in a roll over it will not have the chance to break the bolts off like can happen in a plate design the sheer of a bolt is not as strong as the stretch(tensile).
#2 you can remove the cage then remove the body if need be.
#3 my cj is also fiberglass and the plate design can and will crack body
also the gap that is in between the plates in that design makes #1 even more possible

another way is to use plate design with slug design this is nice on a metal tub not sure about that for a fiberglass tub.

If you want i can get some pics im not the best at explaning things
or tell me my idea sucks

Maybe this will help explain what im talking about but I did it quick.

Makes great sense . what size bolts did you use to hold it in place?
I was thinking about not sandwiching the tub at all given that it is fiberglass and you just confirmed my suspicion about it. I thought maybe running a piece of tube from teh frame up at an angle through the tub and welding a plate on top for welding the cage to. (or cut the tube to fit and weld a plate to the top and drop it down through a hole and weld it to the frame so there would be a good weld surface for the cage to weld to).

Found a 4wd version C6 with NP205 and also a 460 motor. I may buy these and have them rebuilt as plan B for when the current fails.

The 700R4 is yours for the taking dont forget. Like I said it needs rebuilt it was slipping and I just found a replacement and swaped them out.

That is appreciated. I was going to have one rebuilt with the 31 spline conversion package but then if it failed I'd be stuck with rebuilding another one instead of just throwing in a stock replacement. I'm going to run the 454/700r4/231c until it fails and then move to plan B. Plan B is ford motor/tranny/tcase and that way i can use all stock parts and no conversions or adaptors needed. Of course I've been known to change my mind before.

OK changed my mind again I think.. I say to hell with the ford motor/tranny/tcase idea. When the current drivetrain breaks I'll swap the front axle to passenger drop and keep it all Chevy.

Rockn93YJ wrote:

OK changed my mind again I think.. I say to hell with the ford motor/tranny/tcase idea. When the current drivetrain breaks I'll swap the front axle to passenger drop and keep it all Chevy.

It might be a little bit of a head ache but when the chevy guys want a high pinion 60 they taken your axle and retube it so it becomes a pass drop like the chevy axles.

makitupthehardway wrote:

Rockn93YJ wrote:

OK changed my mind again I think.. I say to hell with the ford motor/tranny/tcase idea. When the current drivetrain breaks I'll swap the front axle to passenger drop and keep it all Chevy.

It might be a little bit of a head ache but when the chevy guys want a high pinion 60 they taken your axle and retube it so it becomes a pass drop like the chevy axles.

agreed. it's the most logical way to handle it. Looking at it finiancially it costs more to convert and aquire the ford parts than it does to just have the tubes swapped. By the way AOI in westminster is going to warranty my damaged axleshaft for me.

Got a lot done this weekend. Cage is getting closer to being done. Bell housing cover is on, engine oil tube is installed and sealed, Steering box brace is installed.
Got help from Von and Kat on saturday and Nester spent about 4 hours welding the cage, (he did want some experience at that). The extra set of hands was greatly appreciated. Thank you guys very much.

Wow - the cage looks great!

Looks good bill almost ready to sling some mud

had a great time hanging out and helping.