Topic: making exo cage out of hrew

[85yotapolo]

ok next paycheck ima go and buy metal i was wondering what size metal to use,,,, and how far should the exo be from the acutal truck......  "dom" is was to expensive, also how many points of contact do you want, as in pipe going to frame..      also how does hrew hold up on roll over or tipping anyone got pics

[87pickup]

I would go with 1.75 .120 wall. And mine is about 1" to 1.5" from the body. I would try to get atleast 4 tubes tied to the frame for the cab and another 2 if you plan on covering the front clip. I think hrew works decent, a hard roll will cause some damage no matter what but atleast your better protected.

[jrock]

[pumkin toy]

what is that supposed to mean?
I  would agree with most of what 87 pickup said.  85yotapolo, when you are building a cage out of hrew, always pay attention to where the seem on the tubing is.  always try to put the seem on the inside of all the bends if possible. and try keep the seem facing the cab, so if you do roll over, the chances of the tube splitting on cantact with rocks is alot less.

[jrock]

Well, I didn't want to hijack the thread.

But another question pertaining to Hrew, what size tubing would be sufficient for light rollovers and rock protection? In the event of a major roll over I would expect the cage to protect the riders.

[pumkin toy]

1 5/8" .120 wall HREW should be sufficient for lights rolls and typical rock abuse if it is built correctly.

[signguy]

what is that supposed to mean?
I  would agree with most of what 87 pickup said.  85yotapolo, when you are building a cage out of hrew, always pay attention to where the seem on the tubing is.  always try to put the seem on the inside of all the bends if possible. and try keep the seem facing the cab, so if you do roll over, the chances of the tube splitting on cantact with rocks is alot less.

it seems you dont know how to spell seam!

[pumkin toy]

it seems you dont know how to spell seam!

yep thats my bad!  I was tired when i typed that

[85yotapolo [OP]]

1.75 .120 wall if i use this what die will i use with the harbor freight bender??? also dont got pipe notcher got any ideas to notch pipe??

[87pickup]

I personally didnt have good luck with the hf bender, and you can use a chop saw and angle grinder to notch tube.

[pumkin toy]

1.75 .120 wall if i use this what die will i use with the harbor freight bender??? also dont got pipe notcher got any ideas to notch pipe??

I dont know much about the HF benders, but from what I have heard they will kink the tubing because they are not a mandrel bend.  Kinks are not acceptable for cages!  usually i use a cut off wheel to cut the angle of the pipe notch, then I use a grinding wheel round it out and fit it to the other tube.

[85yotapolo [OP]]

ok metal i got was 1 5/8 x 120 wall looks pretty thick,   i tried using harbor freight bender today the 12ton and trying to make 90 degree bend and it started to kink, i filled with sand and heated pipe too



my ?? is where do i place the outer dies i have no idea, i put both in the first hole closest to the 1.5 die thats connected to hyd pump,,,,,,  where do i place these dies to get good bends

[Gittinit]

If you want good bends youll have to get a good bender. I have seen some nice cages built with the harbor freight benders, but they are hard to work with and it takes a special touch.

[woodfella]

 :slap:Don't use heat! You are weakening it quite a bit doing that. Also( I know I'm a little late on this but) when using HREW you should only use .134 wall so when it draws out it is still at .120. Lots of race cars use HREW and that's how they do it. But I do feel your pain, I just bought some 2" .250 wall and a bunch of .120 IMHO there is no price to high when it means seeing my family again.

[Talon84x4]

Sand and capping the ends is how i've gotten my best bends out of the HF pipe bender. I've seen pictures of some pretty nice exo's made with that bender. I've used mine for a lot of things and they've come out nice but i'm buying a tubing bender to build my exo 

[ryan_ackerman]

you wont get good bends using a HF PIPE bender with TUBE. if all you have access to is a PIPE bender you can run some 2inch poop pipe