Rusted aftermarket roll cage -> Awesome, painted roll cage!

I mentioned a while back that I'd do a full write up of my roll cage rehab, and what better time than a month after I finished it, at midnight when I should be asleep. Anyway, here goes!

When I purchased my Jeep, it had an aftermarket roll cage in it, but it hadn't been finished and was bare metal. I took it out during some of the summer storms and the surface rust got pretty bad.

Originally, I was going to pull the cage out to do the work, but that would have been a huge PITA and probably would have required 4 people to remove it, so instead I did it all while still in the Jeep, which was still a PITA.



First, I took off the bikini top and grab handles. Next, I took took off the doors and detached the seat belts from the roll cage. After that, I folded down the windshield, which wasn't fun with a light bar attached, and took apart the dash so I could acces the A pillar bars behind the dash and have better access to the bar across the top of the dash.





My dog wasn't much help, but she seemed to be enjoying herself.

After everything was taken off, I wrapped the seats in plastic so they wouldn't get rust dust on them. Then it was time to break out the angle grinder with a rust remover plate and a drill with a wire wheel and get to work. I used the angle grinder on the large areas of the cage and the drill with wire wheels on the corners and other tough to reach areas. Luckily, I was able to enlist the help of my brother (@Rc Jeep ) and my girlfriend to help speed up the agonizingly slow process.



By the time we finished sanding, we had gone from rust orange to shiny steel.



Now it was time for the fun part... or at least the part where the end was in sight! We wrapped the entire Jeep in plastic, inside and out and taped everything off to prep for paint.



To paint the cage, I used Rustoleum semi-gloss black paint in a rattle can. I used just over 3 cans for the job for a grand total of about $10.



After a few coats, I moved the Jeep into the sunlight so that I could more easily see spots that I missed or that weren't uniform. Overall, I put on about 5-6 coats. Hopefully, you can see that it turned out really well.





After the paint dried, I removed all of the plastic and put Humpty Fumpty back together again. All in all, the project took about 20 hours of work over 3 days and cost about $60 ($10 for paint and $50 for wire wheels and rust removal plate for the angle grinder).

Now, the cage looks great and more importantly, is protected from further rust.

 

Nice looking jeep!

 

I kinda helped...I drank beer and watched as they got the rust off. I did help paint tho...

 

Chris, next decent size project I do, I'll make sure to reach out. Maybe we can make a mod day out of it.