My Metal Tech Cage is shipping today (1 Viewer)

[nicholastheczar]

Cage is getting there. Like everyone else has said, just keep practicing your welds and you will get very proficient very quick. Take lots of pics.

How much did you pay for you AR500 steel? I've been looking at some also and wanted to compare prices.

nick

 

[ouroutdoorfamily]

The man lazer cut plate cost $225

 

[ouroutdoorfamily]

Well we got a lot done last night and today, most of the copes we got correct, however I did mess up the copes on the B to C pillar overhead bars, so I had to call Mark and order 2 replacements.

 

[71AZFJ]

Wow, That's coming along very nice. And I see your welds are getting better and better. You might want to be careful, Because if you continue to improve the way you are , people are gonna start calling you when they need something welded. You know it's coming !!!

 

[ouroutdoorfamily]

Ah... bring your projects and come on over, we need more reasons to grill out and meet new people.
Thanks on the welds, my tacks look good, believe it or not, I grabbed the cheap helmet the other day to do a quick weld and I could see the entire area while working, the puddle, both pieces of metal... everything, I guess that expensive helmet was making everything to dark, because I couldn't really see the metal at all.

Once that happened the welds started looking much better, lol

 

[ouroutdoorfamily]

Some more pics, put on the soft top last night to see what it would look like and also got both hip gaurds tacked in, as well as the grab rails.... a not on the hip guards, (cut long and work your way down on the B pillar side, as it turned out, I cut what I thought was "long enough' and "luckly" it fit just right.... if I would have cut where I wanted to in the first place I would have been about 1/2 short

 

[ouroutdoorfamily]

So going with everyones advice, I decided to contact someone to do the finish welding for me. After several phone calls and low and high prices, call backs and no answers it hit me..... I work for a manufacturing place, DUH!!!!! So i went out in the shop this morning where we employee almost 60 welders and talked to the guy who does welding for a specfic product we sell and he said he could finish it up for me at his shop for $150!!!

All I need to do is bring it to work, load it in his truck and I can pick it up the following day, (score), should be complete mid next week.

I had to call Metal tech and re-order another set of hip guard bars.... in my quest to get the notches and angles correct, I notched and welded them in upside down :whoops:
Oh well, like they say, it's always easier the second time!

 

[ducky81]

looks good be great once its welded up

i got one delivered to me here in australia they were great to deal with and it looks good now i just have to weld it up

 

[ouroutdoorfamily]

Don't forget to put the hip guards in righ side up, lol

 

[igotta40]

Chris it looks good but I have a question- if for some reason you need to remove the fuel tank, the entire cage has to come out? Is that typical?

 

[kling-on]

WOW looking good

 

[ouroutdoorfamily]

Yes, but it's a brand new tank, can't think of any reason why it would need to come out, but I called Mark, he said once finished the cage could come out in about 16 bolts and 2-3 people, lol

 

[helocat]

Chris it looks good but I have a question- if for some reason you need to remove the fuel tank, the entire cage has to come out? Is that typical?

Yup with the seat cradle system integrated into the cage, yes you pull the cage to get to pull the tank. HOWEVER! One of the key designs to our cages is that they are removable once built. That was a requirement I sketched out before cage #1 was even made over 11 yrs ago. (Cage 1100 went out recently!)

Chris, the truck is looking great and the build is impressive! Great call on having a pro do the finish welds. He will burn them in real well. If you take the truck over with the cage in it this will allow the pro to do most of the welding in the truck so you will get less pulling from the welds in the end. Doing inverted welds when you are learning is tough! When you have been doing it for some time its no different.

Again looks great!

Mark

 

[ouroutdoorfamily]

Cage is tacked in and going to weld this week... just waiting for a day it isn't going to rain, I have a few little things to add, but I can do those after the main welding is done

 

[msahr]

Looking good! I like the way the seat mounts turned out. How high is the seat bottom cushion from the floor?

 

[ouroutdoorfamily]

It's about 1.5 inches higher than it was.... not to excited about that, but I'm exploring ideas on how to lower it, the problem is allows the seat the freedom to move forward and backwards, but it's doable so far

 

[BDSeff1fitty]

your seats look a good bit higher than mine, but we did make some changes when we installed mine. everything looks like it's coming together well though.

 

[ouroutdoorfamily]

well I just got my cage back from weld today. I dropped it off last night.... that's what I call fast service!
I took out the seat cradle system and re-did it to give me back almost 10" of leg room and dropped my seats almost 1", so it was worth re-doing.

I have some minor grinding to do to just smooth things out, but I should paint tomorrow.
Since it's out, I am taking this time to touch up some interior paint. The good thing about doing rattle can paint job is that I can re-paint the whole interior for about $25!!!!!!!

I'll post up some pics tonight of the welds on the cage. I also ordered a Besttop fold and tumble rear seat for the family, so the long rides should be more comfortable.

 

[bikersmurf]

Ah... bring your projects and come on over, we need more reasons to grill out and meet new people.
Thanks on the welds, my tacks look good, believe it or not, I grabbed the cheap helmet the other day to do a quick weld and I could see the entire area while working, the puddle, both pieces of metal... everything, I guess that expensive helmet was making everything to dark, because I couldn't really see the metal at all.

Once that happened the welds started looking much better, lol

Looking good.

If you were a little closer I'd take you up on that offer...

 

[ouroutdoorfamily]

Sorry it took a couple of days, but here are the pics so far