FJ Cruiser with Warn 8274 winch - preview

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Permalink Reply by Boss73 on December 10, 2009 at 10:46am

What a downer..... LOL

But you do raise very good points..

At the very least its a great starting point and the fact that you built with Harbor Freigt stuff means you saved some money.. I know Harbor does not always have the best quality but you cannot beat their prices..

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Permalink Reply by Romanski on December 10, 2009 at 10:56am

No problem.... I researched this for two weeks before actually buying my material so I read MANY MANY arguments, discussions, lab tests, general two word BS around the web.. Pipe is for Poop, pipe is for water, DOM is the best...blah, blah blah. I have a tube bender sitting in my garage, so if there was any reason that the pipe I spec'd out was worse than tubing I would order up some tube, pay the extra $$$ and get it done right. The thing was, pipe was FINE :)

General misunderstanding:

1. Pipe came before tube and is a general use product
2. The difference between PIPE and TUBE is that tube has always a uniform outside diameter OD where PIPE does not have the same high tolerance and even though the inside diameter ID is always the same, the OD can fluctuate on pipe. That is why pipe is measured ID and tube is measured OD. This matters little to me as I'm building for strength and function and not precision machinery). That is the reason for the name diffrences. If you are in doubt of what material your tube bumper was made from you can get a gauge and measure your tubes. If there are variations(have to look up the tolerances) in OD, you're sporting pipe.
3. DOM - Drawn Over Mandrel is not specific to tubing. Pipe is available in DOM as well I think it's called 106a.
4. As far as strength in an application, I believe that design has a great role in the outcome. A badly designed rollcage done with tube will fail quicker than a well made design with pipe.

I'm not a structural engineer but I know how to Google and it seems that those that actually know anything or can supply test data say that pipe is fine for most applications. Those that use tubing cause someone told them 'it's better than pipe" just say "pipe is for poop" and since that's easier to say than research, there are just that many more posts of "pipe sucks".

There is a lot of interesting reading on the web about all this. Some is garbage some is good knowledge if this is something you may be interested in. Like I said, I'll test out my bumper and see what fails first, my welds or the pipe.

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Permalink Reply by MoabFJ on December 10, 2009 at 11:47am

Yep, good luck with that.

"Generally only tubing is rated to carry structural loads. Pipe is rated for max operating pressure as some sort of conduit of water, steam, compressed air, oil, etc. While possible to extract an approximate structural strength from a pressure rating, it's not commonly done."

Not to say yours won't be fine.

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Permalink Reply by MoabFJ on December 10, 2009 at 12:12pm

You are right, there is a lot of debate on pipe -v- tube.
I wouldn't consider building a roll cage out of pipe, but maybe a bumper wouldn't be so bad.

You need to come with us on the "Nor-Cal Moab Invasion" next spring. The same slickrock waterfalls that convinced me the stock tupperware need to go would be an interesting test.

I guess, well..., good job.

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Permalink Reply by Romanski on December 10, 2009 at 1:27pm

Thanks MoabFJ but my Cruiser is retired from heavy wheeling. Two trips through Rubicon and a few other slightly milder trails later I rather not push my luck with my daily driver :) We'll be offroading in it but no more hardcore. We plan to go to Moab one of these days but it will be in the 40.

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