looks pretty cool but what did you gain from doing this i dont understand all that well?

 

Lol. Yeah after you make the first cut in your bed its kinda like eh, the hell with it. I did make the cuts just a little too big but I'm going to fix it by putting a rubber mat on the floor and cut small holes for the tubes. It will clean it up a bit. I'm going to use the same can of bed liner I used to paint my bumper with. It works pretty well if you sand and primer before painting. I've run over many bushes and small plants and the liner hasn't scratched off or chipped.

All the cage does is fit a larger shock for more travel. I only had maybe 8 inches before and now i have about 14. I'm running Deavers in the rear so the shocks I had on before were limiting my travel. Also these shocks work better than the 5100's I had on.

 

Why didn't you make the shocks go straight up and down? seems like you could have...

 

The Deavers don't cycle straight up and down. I followed this write up (http://www.desertrides.com/reference/bedcage.php) and it shows you how to cycle your suspension and get the right shock angle.

 

Okay, that makes sense because you want to use the whole range of the shocks travel as it doesn't equal the travel of your springs.

 

wow looks great so far man

 

That's a great write up. Thanks.

Are you planning to make it a spare tire mount too?

 

thats what i thought thanks for clearing that up

 

Finished welding the last parts to the cage and painted it. Everything came together really nice.


Got the bends and main part welded together. Installed it to see how it worked.




Welded the last support bars





Time for some primer




Finished it off with some truck bed liner paint




Finally all finished and back on the truck. Tomorrow I build the tire mounts. One will be in the middle of the square between the shocks and one will be angled up in the back of the bed facing out. More pics to come....

 

Looks sick man, great work.

 

Very nice work, but all your pictures make me think i have cataracts, lol....

 

wow... that looks really really good man.
great work. i wish i had those kind of skills...

 

looks great. i need to get a bender, making your own stuff is awesome

 

Turned out awesome. Great work!!

 

drools

 

lol. Thanks guys. At the beginning I wasn't too sure how well it would turn out. This is only my second project with welding. When I made my bumper I had to teach myself how to weld by watching some youtube videos and going outside to try it on some scrap metal I had. I finally felt I was good enough and ended up making a decent bumper. This time the welds were way better and I was actually surprised on the final product. I'm going to get rid of my Harbor Freight bender and replace it with a brand new JD2 so once that happens I'm going to start building a few more of these. A few buddies saw the final product and want a bed cage. If anybody is interested I wouldn't mind building another one. Just pm me and we can work something out.

 

I wouldn't mind having one myself, it would make mall crawling so much more fun!

 

well now there goes ur bed tent haha

 

I really like the way it turned out Josh. Clean simple design and you still have use or your bed. But you have dead tubes. The tubes that you welded in that go from the back to the front of the shock hoops are not all the way to the hoop there is like a 1/2 inch of tube still left. It looks like it will hold up but in the future you might want to move those tubes closer and make it more structurally sound.

 

Looks real good! Why not put both tires in between the square?

 

Nice job Josh, did you make the cage by hand?

 

Looks good man, I like it!

 

Also did you use the stock bed bolts? And now how many bolts are holding the bed down?

 

Yes I made most of it by hand. The only thing not by hand is the shock mount tabs. The bed is bolted in with 4 grade 8 bolts and nylocks. I am going to see how it looks with the other tire mounted in the center but it might be too high, we will see. LOL Mike I know the bed tent is no more :(. That reminds me, if anybody wants to buy a truck bed tent I have that fits our rangers perfectly just pm me. Getting rid of it for $60 bucks.

 

Damn if I wasn't selling my truck I would buy that!