A month ago we let you know about our plan to build a new '07 Jeep JK Wrangler for this year's Ultimate Adventure trip. As you may or may not know, Ultimate Adventure is a weeklong trip where we four-wheel, caravan on highways, live out of tents and hotels, and eat, sleep, and breathe trucks. Every year we build some vehicle to lead a group of readers, advertisers, and some of our cronies through the trails, and that vehicle is usually some over-the-top buildup. In years past we've built an old military Jeep, a Ford Super Duty, a Chevy Avalanche, a Toyota Tacoma, an FJ Cruiser, and an early '70s GM stepside pickup.
This year the new four-door Wrangler will be going under the knife, and when we say "new," we mean new-with less than 200 miles on the odometer there were saws cutting factory steel out of the way. One thing we did differently this year was to start with a two-wheel-drive Jeep since we knew everything was going to get changed to parts that can support 40-plus-inch tires. We figured, "why start with a full-blown Rubicon?" Kudos to Jeep for offering a bare-bones wheeler for those of us who can't leave well enough alone, and their best out-of-the-box Rubicon for those of us that would rather wheel than wrench.
The first step in our buildup was to take the Jeep to Twisted Customs in Rapid City, South Dakota. Twisted Customs is known for its rock buggies which have won many competitive rockcrawls. But T.C. is really based in building rigs to dominate the top-notch wheeling trails of South Dakota. There are more than 20 different Twisted Customs buggies out running trails and just as many in the works for customers (not to mention years and years of modified 4x4s from Broncos to Land Cruisers that have come from its shop). We felt building a simple cage for protecting the UAJK occupants would be an easy task for T.C. Over the course of two long weekends we had the factory cage removed and a new custom cage built specifically for our trip. Next month we'll reveal some more of our over-the-top plans for building the JK into a real brute of a trail machine.
With less than 200 miles on...
With less than 200 miles on the odometer, we took the Rescue Green Jeep JK to Twisted Customs for a new rollcage. The factory cage is good, but we wanted something unique-that would allow easily folding down the windshield as a proper Jeep should be. Jason Paule, Brian Errea, and Joechim Schweisow started by removing all the extraneous padding, plastic, and accessories on the factory cage.
Though it looks like they...
Though it looks like they are having fun, can't you tell these guys wish they had a more substantial cage around them? A few sticks of 1 3/4-inch by 0.120-wall DOM tubing and we'll have just that.
Let's face it, a proper Jeep...
Let's face it, a proper Jeep shouldn't have any doors or top; it's just better to be out in the open, but this poses a problem with the four-door. It just looks kind of funny with two big openings. And on top of that, there is this giant B-pillar in between them that ties into the factory cage system. We decided that half-doors would be used and the B-pillar would go, and we doubt the Jeep will ever see more than a simple bikini top from now on.
Removing the factory cage...
Removing the factory cage isn't like the old days when it just unbolted. Now it's all welded into the tub and requires tools like this portable bandsaw to be removed. However, we figured that if we reuse these mounting points for our cage, then it should be pretty strong.
In order to keep the build...
In order to keep the build moving, we lopped off the B-pillar and the rest of the OEM cage work. We initially had half-doors on order but started cutting before they arrived so we had to leave extra material on the B-pillar to match the doors.
One of the strongest portions...
One of the strongest portions of the tub should be where the windshield, body sides, doors, and firewall all meet, so we opted to have the front A-pillar of the cage tie in there as well. This would allow us to remove the dash if need be for the rest of the build and not require one of those funky front-cage legs that bends all around the dash before it reaches the floor.