M.O.R.E Bolt-In Sport Cage

Nov. 01, 2005 By Tony Carricaburu

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by Tony Carricaburu

August 2001 -- After talking with Mountain Off Road Enterprises (M.O.R.E.), I was convinced that their bolt-in cage was by far the best cage on the market for my YJ. So, I picked up the basic kit with the optional two center spreader bars, and a frame tie-in kit to provide greater stability and strength.

The roll bar bolts into the floor. But with the optional Frame Tie-In Kit, it bolts directly to the frame.

A week after ordering, the cage arrived. The unpainted hardware for this kit included nuts, bolts and washers. All the separate pieces are pre-bent to fit your Jeep's interior exactly. Only minor drilling is required. I began by painting some of the bars. Half way through, I decided it would be best to wait until after I installed the kit. This way if there was any wrestling and hammering to be done, I wouldn't have to repaint and touch up the surface. See pictures below for some pieces of the kit and pre-install pictures. INSTALL PART 1:
In order to install the cage, I first had to remove the hardtop and slid it back about a foot so that I was able to fold down the windshield frame. I then removed the old factory roll bars that attach to the YJ windshield frame by two Torx-style bolts per-side. These are basically useless additions to the factory roll bar if you ask me. I was happy to see them go, considering the only purpose they ever provided me was a hand grip when wheelin. I then had to remove one bolt from each side of the window securing bracket. This is the three-bolt bracket located just above the factory speaker locations. This allowed me to fold the windshield down for the first time in my Jeep life. I was actually surprised to find some interesting items that fell behind the windshield frame. See pictures below.

INSTALL PART 2:

In the event of a roll over, you're protected.

Now that I had the front windshield folded down and the hard top semi-removed I had much more room to install the new M.O.R.E side bars. Before installing these into the Jeep I first had to attach the small mounting brackets that was recently attached to the factory windshield support bar. These brackets are designed so that the factory bolt in roll-cage design remains consistent. I actually did run into a problem when it was time to remove these brackets from the factory windshield support bars. Jeep thought they would be funny by using some odd-ball torx style bolt which had a slightly different tool requirement to remove. Instead of rushing down to my local Jeep dealership which is about 45 miles away, I grabbed some big vise-grips, clamped them down really hard, grabbed my good friend Mr. Sledge-Hammer and with a couple hits, the bolts loosened up and I was on my way. I'm sure this wasn't the best method of removing those bolts but in a time of need I am prepared to adapt. None the less the bolts were removed and replaced with grade 8 hardware when these brackets were installed in the new M.O.R.E. side bars.
It was now time to install the new side bars, we'll not completely install the bars but put them in place and hand tighten the bolts for now since other roll-cage addition are going to also be installed. See picture below.
(Click on image for large view) INSTALL PART 3:

The roll cage does not reduce your options when it comes to hard tops, soft tops, hard doors, half door or soft doors. Whatever you run, the cage allows enough room for functionality.

Next step included installing the cross bar and sliding the two optional spreader bars onto this bar for later installation. I placed the cross bar with two spreader bars into position and connecting them to the left and right side bars. M.O.R.E. designed the side bars with easy slide over and bolt-down cross bar mounting tubes. This was really easy and included sliding the bar over top of the side bars cross bar mounting tubes. I then drilled and thru-bolted the cross bars down on each side as instructions indicated. See pictures below. INSTALL PART 4:
After installing the cross bar and setting the two optional spreader bars into position it was time to start bolting some of these bars down. Since I had already drilled and bolted the cross bar down to the side bars its was time to drill and bolt the side bar floor board mounts and bolt them into position. I went ahead and began drilling and bolting down the floor-board side bar plates. Before drilling these holes I had a friend pull on the side bar bringing the side bar as close as they could away from the dash and towards the inner rock panel. This step isn't required but I wanted the cage to be further away from the dash than the bar was setting at rest. this would avoid rattling or rubbing on the dash, plus this would give me a touch more leg and foot room in the floor-board area. After securing the driver-side floor board mount I followed the same steps on the passenger-side with the exact same results. See pictures below for details.
INSTALL PART 5:

Here are the brackets which allow you to connect the cross bars.

Now my M.O.R.E. roll-cage is starting to look like a full-cage and actually as is its provided a lot of strength with just these steps installed. This would be known as the standard kit with no options. I went with both options available, both frame tie-in and two center spreader bars. My next step was to mount these spreader bars, but first I had to measure, then re-measure the location of these spreader bars in order for the two bars to sit in the same distance from each other (centered). I then went ahead and drilled the holes threw the cross bar and using the supplied bolts I secured each spreader bar into position. This was a straight-forward and easy step, it just required a lot of drilling (6 holes total). See pictures below for more details of the spreader bars during there mounting steps.
INSTALL PART 6:
The M.O.R.E. Cage is almost coming to a conclusion. I went ahead and finished the sport-cage's finish by sanding and priming the rest of the bars for a couple coats of paint. Using the same rattle can matched Krylon red I sprayed a first coat on all the bars including the bolts, nuts and other bars that already had paint (basically everything). I then had to wait a couple hours for that coat to somewhat dry before I sprayed a couple more coats of red on. For some reason this heavy-duty Krylon paint takes forever to dry even at 75 degrees with the sun baking on it.
Around the dash and floorboards I had to mask off some cardboard pieces so that I didn't get over spray on everything. Behind the bars on the dash side were a little tough to get, being about 2 inches away from the dash, but with a couple distant sprays I was able to mist a couple good coats on. See pictures below for pictures of the cage un-painted and completely painted red.