Installing a Cab 101 - Part 1

Equipment or supplies needed to swap a cab:

1) Machinery or people that can lift 500 lbs        

2) A handy set of mechanic tools

3) Knowledge of fabricating (optional, but handy)

4) Clever Problem Solving Skills

5) A case of Mountain Dew or Pepsi

6) A touch of insanity

7) A gun (why not?)

Good, now that you have what you need let me show you some things the Jacob family, a friend named Jonathon, and I accomplished to put a new cab on on my Jeep J10.

As I had mentioned earlier in my blog, I wanted to patch some holes in my floorboards to get my truck ready for Wisconsin winters. Jake pointed out that swapping a cab was really not that difficult, and actually a little easier than patching floors. With my tiny amount of knowledge and experience in fixing cars, this seemed absolutely insane. Jake explained that patching a few holes in the floorboard is not as easy as I thought. Also, he pointed out that my cab was fecal matter. My body panels, rocker panels and floorboards were rusting away. My wiring was worn and outdated along with my lap belts. And my doors were slowly becoming "see-thru" along with the body panels, not to mention the crack in the window. Swapping the cab would fix the rust and would immediately update wiring and seat-belts, and solve other cab issues. 

I prepared the new cab except for cutting the bolts. This meant removing the steering wheel, braking system, installing a manual pedal cluster and fixing anything that was easy to get to, like the door hinges and interior switches.

A Lesson Learned: 

Only the tractor was holding the frame up, and I was underneath.

When I went to cut the bolts off of the new cab, Jake had already lifted the frame using the bucket of the tractor. I figured, "great, I'll climb under there and saw the bolts off and be done with it." I'd finished cutting 2 of the bolts when Jake saw me under the frame, demanded that I get out from under it and reamed me out for be so dumb. I thought, "what in the world is he yelling at me for?" He pointed out that I had zero support under the frame before I crawled underneath (remember, I said you needed a little insanity, not stupidity). If the hydraulics failed the only thing holding up the frame would be my body. Just weeks earlier we had read in the newspaper about a guy in our area who was killed because his truck fell on him. I saw myself in the newspaper. 

We put some tires, and some 4x4 posts underneath the frame before I crawled back under.

Moving the Cab:

After I cut the rest of the bolts, we attached some tow straps to the cab and the bucket of the tractor. We then put the new cab on the Kabota just like we did with the old one. By the way, if you know a tougher, more used Kabota than Jake and Jackie's I'd like to see it. 

Also, notice the terrain. Moving a cab is one thing, moving it up a 4-wheel only driveway is another issue. Jake decided to back the Kabota uphill to help give it a little security, and also to prevent having to turn around at the top of the driveway.

Preparations:

We finally had the cab beside the truck. The next thing to do was to fix any outside rust before actually moving the cab. We looked at a few minor holes in the cab and decided to weld those up and sand them smooth. This took a little bit of care and time, but it was well worth it in the end. How often does someone decide to remove their bed/cab and decide to fix the minor rust holes? Not exactly a Saturday routine at my house. 

After sanding down the metal, we noticed some pretty rusty areas. Jake welded those up. We sanded them down and then covered them with some undercoating spray. I wold eventually like to professionally paint the truck, but this is a good start to protect this new cab. 

Installation: 

So the scariest part of this ordeal happened when we were actually moving the cab about 20 feet to the Jeep frame of my truck. I don't have many pictures of this ordeal because all of us were just trying to steady the cab without it smashing into something. 

It had been a long day. Everybody was tired already and about to call it a day. But before it got completely dark, we decided to move set the cab on the frame and then call it a day. Simple task right? It wasn't. 

We started by moving the Kabota parallel to the truck. The tractor would then pick up the cab and have a straight shot to the truck frame as the Kabota was moved out of the way. We used the tow straps again and attached the cab to the bucket of the tractor, and lifted the cab up and off of the Kabota. Then, Jake lined up the tractor with the frame and began moving the cab closer to the frame. 

During the move to the frame, the bucket suddenly dropped. Jackie and I both thought, is Jake insane?? The answer is yes, but he's also pretty good with a tractor. Anyway, we just knew he was going to run the cab into the frame. Well, he raised the bucket again with the cab swinging on the straps--we could also hear the creaking sounds of metal....not a reassuring sound. Meanwhile I was about to pee my pants as I was imagining the cab flying loose from the straps and rolling on top of us, or down the mountain. The bucket lowered again, and this time we yelled at Jake and he yelled that he wasn't doing it, the hydraulics were going out. The cab had come crashing down onto the nose of the tractor. Jake was about 7 feet away at this point and I was in  between the cab and the frame which was a very dangerous place to be. Jake heaved the bucket up again off the nose of the tractor, causing the cab to swing again and he rushed forward with the tractor before the bucket dropped again. He managed to lower the cab onto the frame in one piece. When the cab came down on the frame, it made a loud crashing sound, but it had settled safely onto the frame without injuring anyone. The loud crashing sound was the receiving neck for the shift lever. We'd forgotten to take the trans tunnel cover off before lowering the cab on the frame. Since the new cab originally was designed for an automatic transmission, it had no hole for the shift lever to go through and made a loud crash when the two suddenly came together. 

The important thing was that the cab was now on my truck frame and no one was hurt. We were all pretty worried. Needless to say, after that, we quit, ate dinner, and went to bed.

The next day, we adjusted the cab to fit correctly on the frame.
We still had to bolt the cab down though.