Thanks for the advice, I will prime interior after we bend up the cage,but before we weld it in, I also need to get the headliner back in it before the cage is welded in place.

I found out today the tie rods I purchased had JUNK boots on them, the car hasn't left the shop and three are already cracked and coming apart. China crap strikes again!!

Body is on the pan, I'm real happy with the look.

love the tsl's what size did you go with?

29's in the front and 31x10.50's in the rear, could have went 33's in the rear "I think there's enough room". I really like the TSL's too!

Just couldn't find nerf bars we liked so we made our own, I really like the look!





Next comes the cage fabrication

The upper brush bar suport should be up higher on the body and closer to the door jam. Are you putting a cage in the car?

Not sure what your going to be doing for off road, but all the brace work in side the side bars is over kill. If you hook or smash somthing hard you can bend your floor pan. You would rather have the bars bend and save the floor pan. it is simpler and quicker to replace bent brush bars than it is to replace a floor pan. The only bar you would put is one just under the rear swing of the door to keep your door from dropping down in the gap formed by the bars and locking you inside the car.

Not to be a nag...

1 last thing you did get new wheesl. You have some Deep dish rims. This is hard on the outer wheel bearing on the fronts and stearing parts. On the rear it will wear out the splines on your stub axle and brake parts.

This is just FYI info. and you should plan for this with stronger stearing parts like tie rods etc. and a steel core insert for your brake roters on the rear. Do not use cast brake parts with the deep dish rims.

Thanks for the advice and I understand what you are saying about the added supports in the side bars. The cross braces are there so my kids wont break their legs crawling in and out of the rear seat,this car has quickly turned into more of a show car than a go car. I would think a little mud may be the worst off road abuse this car will ever see. It will mainly be a street driven car. "This wont be a trailer queen, but it will be driven back and forth to work and such". I'm not real happy with the wheels and I will keep the back spacing in mind when I change them out in the future. What are the steel core rotors you mentioned are there cast rotors with steel splines available? That sounds like a much better option to me.

Im with AZ on the offset aswell....though i REALLY do love my Old school Centerlines. 33s will fit easy with 21 3/4 torsions and youre runnin an inch longer trailers aswell. But if you kept the T1 Trans that was in it 31s are pushing the limit for me....ive never ran more than 29 on a T1. Its LOOKING great none-the-less....KUDOS!!! Bend the cage to Tie into the Nerf and i think your existing work will be fine....Im liking the lower profile wider thing you got goin on. And havin kids makes you come out with some of the best ideas.....God Bless the little people!!!!
Ill say nice sweat equity Brother!!!!

OHHHH........and i forgot to say
I Love the Florida Caps over you heating duct holes in the body>[

Florida caps.... Hmmmm That may be a good marketing idea! HaHa

Your Welcome
I loved the socks that were stuffed up in my build

Any ideas where you are going to run your shock mounts off you trailers yet???? Or are you heading in the general build direction off the top to the cage????

AzBaja wrote:

1 last thing you did get new wheesl. You have some Deep dish rims. This is hard on the outer wheel bearing on the fronts and stearing parts.

I have to agree with AZ on this. Even on a street only bug, the steering radius will be SERIOUSLY compromised along with the effort to steer. Just the Centerlines on the front of mine have made its turning radius worse than my full-size pickup truck. What does this is the "scrub radius" with the offset on those wheels. Scrub Radius is the distance from where a line through the kingpin hits the ground (this is the center of pivot for the steering) and the center of the tire contact patch. The bigger that distance, the harder it is to steer. If that distance is zero, it is extremely easy to steer, but the car is unstable and the steering will not self-center after a turn is finished.

Lucky for me the rims are one thing I ordered I'm really not happy with, "The pictures on line referred to them as ring stars and they showed a picture of a ring of black bolts around the inside perimeter,well when they showed up they didn't have any after waiting 4 weeks for them from Don's" I think they will be one of the first things I change out and I can use a wider front beam at that time to get the same look with less offset on the rims. I just need to get this thing on the road,,,, ASAP! Thanks again for the good advice. I had a deeper offset on my front rims on the street rail I sold but the front was much lighter so I probably never noticed the return to center thing.