Before we get started I feel that I need to give you guys fair warning. This is going to be a LONG post and if you’re on 56k…go take a nap. I believe this post is going to have 30 pictures in it so don’t wait around if you’re not on a high speed connection.
First, let’s talk about the last 20 hours of my life. What was accomplished during those 20 hours? Well…4 wheel wells are now free of tar, silicon, sound deadening, and whatever the hell else Subaru sprays in there. It was the worst 20 hours I’ve spent in quite a while so I figured I’d drag you through it before I show you the “fun” pictures.
This is what the wheel wells look like:
And about 5 hours later, this is what it should look like:
To get there, you have to scrape through many layers of junk. 14 years worth of dirt makes up the first layer. Layer 2 consists of Subaru’s paint and a sound deadening-like material. Layer 3 is basically an off-white looking silicon that seals the wheel wells so they don’t rot or rust. So after scraping through all of that, you actually reach metal!
Everything’s going great until you decide to look at the big picture and realize how much there is to remove. Then once you’ve removed all of that you realize there’s the whole other part of the wheel well that you can’t see in the picture that’s on the INSIDE of the fender.
That’s OK though…you just keep plugging along with your trusty heat gun and scraper:
Once that’s done, you take a drill with a wire brush and sand it all down. At this point, if you haven’t fallen asleep, you can actually see what appears to be a seam. Yes, there really are seams under all of that crap! All of the seams have to be completely clean before any seam welding can be done so you break out your favorite pick and start scraping all over again:
Once you finish that you have this great sense of accomplishment. All of your hard work has paid off and the wheel well is finally clean. Then you realize there’s 3 more to do. Luckily the fronts aren’t quite as bad as the rears. I just finished those tonight. Here’s a finished picture of one of the front wheel wells:
So, enough about scraping and sanding, lets go through some fun pictures of the cage. First up, here’s the font (a-pillar) plate that is almost done being welded in. As you can see, this isn’t some tacky little plate that only connect to the floor. It’s welded to three different planes:
The front wheel wells also got some seam welding love:
The b-pillar floor plate is done in a similar way and is connected in 3 places as well. Although you’ll notice that only two thirds of the plate is actually welded in. The bottom portion isn’t welded in yet for top secret reasons…if you continue reading you might just find out why :).
So anyway, the main hoop and a-pillar bars are in:
Most people only put 1 bend in the top of the a-pillar bar. Kyle takes great pride in that his cages contour extremely closely to the frame of the car. For that reason, his a-pillar bar has 2 bends up there (on different axes) so that it’s almost touching the roof and a-pillar as it comes down:
His windshield / visor bar is no different. Look at how close this thing is to the roof. You can barely see it in the picture (look for the bar above where the windshield would be):
Kyle’s attention to detail doesn’t stop there though. Here’s a perfect example. When you’re building a cage everything gets tack welded in place first. Here’s where the a-pillar bar meets the main hoop (b-pillar):
Most people are really lazy and they wouldn’t actually fully weld that bar in place before putting another bar on top of it. Kyle welds the portion of the bar that will be covered up first like this:
With that weld finished, he can then put the start of the roof-X in place:
Then bar 2 of the X comes in place:
…And bar 3:
Then a bar is put in to tie the roof-X, a-pillar, and windshield bar together:
Now at this point, you’re probably wondering (much like I did), “how does Kyle manage to weld all of those bars together with the roof in the way?” Well, if you remember I told you that those b-pillar plates weren’t welded in yet. Those get slid out and the entire cage gets dropped through 2 holes in the floor:
With the cage dropped down, Kyle has plenty of room to fully weld all of the bars:
Here’s what the welds look like once they’re all complete (so pretty!):
With that all done, it’s time to bring the cage back up in to place. The b-pillar plates are slid back in and everything is tack welded in place:
Here’s another example of how closely his cage contours to the body. The b-pillar bars are actually welded to…the b-pillar (duh!):
Finally, here’s what the complete roof looks like with everything in place. It’s amazing how close he gets everything to the roof. You can’t even get half of a finger in between the bars and the roof:
The main hoop (b-pillar) X and harness bar go in next. Then that will get connected to the rear struts and the rear-strut X. At that point the real fun begins as it’s time to start cutting holes in the firewall to connect the a-pillar bars to the front struts. At the very end, the door X’s will go in. All of that should be done next week. Fun times are ahead!
