Winter upgrades to the Jailbar Jalopy

[GB SISSON]

Kinda boring as winter sets in all dreary and damp. For most winters I have an exciting build in progress, but nothing big shaking this year, so I said to myself "How about finishing some of the details on past projects that I just wasn't happy with?" I tend to get a bit excited when creating these things and grab a piece of scrap tubing or bar stock to tack something together 'for now' and give it a test. Well, it worked out so now onto the next hurdle. The Foyota has actually been quite a succesful 'hybrid, ok(mutt)' of toyota chassis/engine/drivetrain with jailbar sheet metal. So much so that I have been motivated to alter the areas that bother me most about the initial design and build. Lord knows there are more than a few.
First item was the 1"x2"x1/8" rectangular steel tube that supports the plywood floor in the cockpit. This runs between the front and rear fenders above the running board. In profile it has the appearance of joining the front and rear sections of the vehicle together, but that job is done very well by the hidden fully boxed frame. The 1x2 just always looked too small and light for it's job as the rocker panel. A friend had a 7' piece of 3"x4"x1/8" rectangular steel tubing. Unfortunately I had to rip it lengthwise to make my two 49" pieces of channel which applied over the smaller channel. I also wanted to space it outboard a half inch as the suburban 3rd row seat was an inch too wide and I had to put nuts behind my safety rail as spacers. Hokey.... I welded 1/2" spacers to the small tubing and welded the new channel on top, cutting the rear fenders to accept it to pass through. The rear braces for the seat were crudely made and going in the wrong direction and not secured well at the bottom. I made some tabs from 1/4" bar stock and new straps and am happy with progress so far. Need some patches on the running boards next and a few other things in this area, but there are more weekends ahead. Some Pics