body stabilizing for soft top 55

[elbigsam]

I have decided to sell my doors, chop the top and fab a cage for my 69. Anyone have advice as far as tying the cage into the pillars or crossbar placement to keep everything happy? I have done a similar project with a rollbar into a 74 station wagon once before, I used a crossbar from the b pillars along the floor that tied into the pilars and driveshaft hump.

I have looked at the pickup/truggy thread but none of them are exactly what I have in mind. On extreme 4x4 they did a cage and softtop into a scout that I thought turned out very nice, however it was designed with a removeable hard top so I imagine it had reinforcement from the factory.

I haven't done a ton in the 18 months since I first posted here, I put together a custom oil filter setup that needs testing still, bought a chevy alternator, and did a lot of welding, grinding, cursing, cutting, rewelding regrinding, recursing on the roof gutters before I decided that I wanted to go soft top. Thanks for reading.

 

[Gumby]

When I chopped the top on my old 55 I used tube to bridge the gap between the inner and outer panels from the rear doors to the gate. I then tied into that tube with the cage. The cage mounts went to the body and frame. I kept my B pillar and roof so I did not need a w/s support or rear support for the front door. If you don't do that you would want to tie the cage into both of those.

Crossbar placement can get tricky if you want to keep the rear seats. On the little pig I didn't keep the rear seat so the hoop behind the front seat is triangulated and has a cross support for the upper part of the seat belt harness.

 

[elbigsam]

Hmmm, I want to keep the seats, but you have given me mutch to think on.

 

[nuthinbutcruisers]

I was saving these for a thread in the new year but here's what I did. It was not intended as a cage by any means.

After removing the roof skin and taking off what was left of the rusted rain gutters. I cut the fore-aft rail between the C and D pillars then cut the D pillars out. Then I cut out just the face and the top of the remaining fore-aft rail from the A pillar to the C pillar. Then I used a 1x3 1/8th wall tube split along the short side to remake a rain gutter and put a 1-1/2x1-1/2 tube to reform the fore-aft rail. The tube used to replace the D pillar is supported in the body by a 5/16" plate shaped to match the contour of the body at the protrusion just above the tail light. everything else is just welded to the body sheet metal.

 

[landcruisnman]

Roll Cage Body Support

I attached my cage to the body behind the rear door and to the front upper gussets. I did this once before without the gussets and the body cracked pretty bad in those front upper corners.... I'm probably going to change my cage, but I'll attach the body in the same areas. It's held for 20 years.

 

[RHINO]

when i was thinking of cutting the top off mine i was going to run the cage tubes down the pillars frenched in the interior sheet metal to give me max room and also to tie in directly with the rocker/sliders i built that are welded completely to the body,,, i was then going to tie into the frame, as needed through a combination of the body mount outriggers and gussets.

 

[CarmMontana]

Love the look. I can't wait to see what you come up with for the top, canvas?

 

[elbigsam]

Those gussets look like just the thing, thank you for posting. I've got a flip down windshield from a 40 that I'm planning to use so the front will have to be differant, but man, I think I can handle that.

 

[Gumby]

That would be a difficult fit.