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My custom rocker guards w/ tube steps are done!

21K views 56 replies 31 participants last post by  theblackjeep98 
#1 ·
Well they are finally nearing completion. Primed them last night, putting on paint tonight. They are formed 3/16" plate with 1.5" .120 wall DOM tubes. The tubes are mounted at an upward angle of about 20 degrees, and the tubes are fully tig welded.

Watch for a full write-up on them on my site sunday or early next week.

Here's a couple pics.



Sexy tig welds!







2nd coat of primer:





Sandwich plates.



The final paint colour will be what I like to call "Nth Degree Grey".

 
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#6 ·
When I first started them I thought I would build two sets.. sell one to someone in the club. Now that I'm done.. no friggin way. They didn't cost me much, but the time put into them is worth way more than I could sell them for.

It's my first set and I could likely half the time for the second set, but it would still not be worth it.

total cost of them is:

5'x10' 3/16" plate from work - $200
DOM tubing incl. bending - $40
Hardware (fasteners) - $11 (bolt supply gives me a discount because of where I work)
Paint - $35
26er of Baileys for my buddy who did the welding - $28

Granted there is still lots of steel left.. enough for front and rear bumpers, so the actual cost of the steel for this set was about $60-70.

So, with that in consideration, the total cost is: $184 CDN.

And I would guess about 30 hours labour.. $50/hour $1500. :p :laugh:

All the cutting, forming, drilling, tube notching, hole cutting, counter sinking, punching etc was done mostly with shop tools for free. :cheers2:
 
#8 ·
Ok, they are really done now. I got the stainless hardware I needed for the sides, and picked up some Clear Outdoor Acrylic caulking to seal them up. I talk about this more in the write-up here.

I made new sandwich plates for the insides because a couple didn't fit right. I also went ahead and made sandwich plates for the sides too, which is something I have never seen in an aftermarket set.. so NYAH-NYAH to all them!

For the paint I did 3 coats of primer and 3 coats of paint.

I learned a few things about paint this time around..
1: 3 coats is "enough" but I would prefer 5 or more. The paint is still fairly thin, but I assume I will need to touch it up on the bottoms after using them offroad no matter what, so this is not a big deal.
1: Get a paint can trigger thingy.. Something you attach to the top of the can that adds a handle and trigger. My fingers hurt real bad after all that painting, and that would have made it much easier. Maybe it's just Tremclad.. but the nozzle is pretty stiff.
2: Painting inside gaps is hard. the paint is really thin on the part of the tubes that face the body because it was hard to get in there. If I was prepared better I could have hung the rockers so I would be able to spray better at that angle.
3: Glyptal is CRAZY stuff. It dries to an almost rubbery finish at first, and takes about 72 hours to dry completely to a hard-ish finish. When I coated the inside of the stand-offs with it it made a huge mess. I regret not preparing more (tape tape and more tape) for this step, but I am really glad I did because there's no better way to coat inside something like that. After I learned my lesson the 2nd rocker went a lot smoother than the 1st.
4: 12 hours from final coat to install is not *near* enough time. I knew the paint wouldn't be fully set yet, so I was careful.. but I still messed up the paint pretty bad in a few places. especially where the counter sunk bolts sit. I will need to remove the bolts, mask off and repaint those later. I can't remove the rockers from the jeep anymore because they are glued on with acrylic and I don't want to try to clean that up if I remove them. Next project I do the paint will sit for 48 hours+ before I touch it.

Some other lessons learned:
1: Cut the holes in the stand-offs before welding them to the rockers. I could have just put them in a drill press.. once they were welded to the rockers, it was too much of a pain to drill them so I used a plasma torch. This worked ok because I found the right setting that would burn through the 1st layer, but not the 2nd... but it made a nasty mess inside.
2: While 1" seems like enough space between the tubes and rockers, it's very difficult to weld. It's great because I don't get the back of my leg dirty every time I hop out of the jeep, but it's very hard to weld properly.

I'm very pleased with the results. Cows are less beefy. They look good, work great as a hi-lift point, and will perform great offroad.

Here's a few more pictures.

Old hardware (before I got the stainless outside bolts)




Sandwich plates including the new side ones, and the new hardware




Clear Acrylic to seal them


All done!

 
#11 · (Edited)
The plate flat was 53 1/16" x 14 7/16".

Marking the bend lines from the tops, they would be 5 7/8" (60 degree bend) and 8 7/8" (30 degree bend). If I can manage to beat this laziness I could draw it up for you.

No pics of the underside.. I'll go snap a couple, just a min.

edit: Ok.. got some pics and a drawing for you.





And the drawing (click here for a fullsize version).

 
#18 ·
Thanks.

Just to be different really. I plan on getting tube fenders front and rear with rear corners.. and I don't really like the look of all the black armour covering everything.

Ultimately I would have liked to professionally paint all my armour with a color matched paint, but there's no way I would spend that sort of money on just paint.

I figured this is a good middle ground. I can be different and it won't stick out so much on a silver jeep.

I'm honestly not 100% happy with the colour yet. It sticks out which is cool, but I'm gonna make a final decision on paint once I get my front bumper done. Either all black or all nth grey. It's super easy to repaint black over the current colour because it's just tremclad. Maybe my paint skills will get better and I can colour match stuff myself with some accuracy, wet sanding, and the right paint.
 
#16 · (Edited)
Nice work, but shouldn't the rails be angled up at about 45* or so? Decreases the chance of them acting like levers on the top of the rocker when you come down really hard on something.

http://i258.photobucket.com/albums/hh244/DZruger/DSC02901.jpg

Yours don't stick out very far, so it may not be as big a concern as with the really wide flat rails. Again....nice job
 
#17 ·
Thanks for the comments guys!

They aren't angled upwards near as much as some manufacturers, but they do have a 20 degree angle to them. I don't think I will be catching on the tubes much because they don't stick out very far, and the rockers themselves stick downwards a bit lower because of the double bend.
 
#31 ·
Do you have your layouts for the back up plates, and the placing of your holes? What are all the holes on the bottom of sliders? Looks awesome and i am building them!!! I really appreciate your sharing with all of us!

john
No, I don't. I didn't bother drawing this because I figured that out as I went along. I just chose hole locations that wouldn't hit anything on the inside, and sort of winged it. Same thing with the holes on the bottom.

Also to this question, how in the world did u double bend thoughs?? i would really like to make some but just cant figure out how to bend em like that
I work as a press brake operator, so I can bend it however I want. :p

These are awsome I love it If its cool with you I would love to make a set of these for my jeep
By all means, post up some pictures when you're done. :p

I want to make a set for my jeep too, was thinking about using diamond plate for the flat steel The local steel supplier has sheets of 14 gauge, do you think that would be thick enough??

also what holes were you talking about here?
No, 14ga is not near thick enough. 14ga is roughly 1/16th of an inch. 1/3rd the thickness they should be. If you landed on a rock with it, it would dent causing severe damage to the body of the jeep.
 
#29 ·
These are awsome I love it If its cool with you I would love to make a set of these for my jeep
 
#30 ·
I want to make a set for my jeep too, was thinking about using diamond plate for the flat steel The local steel supplier has sheets of 14 gauge, do you think that would be thick enough??

also what holes were you talking about here?
1: Cut the holes in the stand-offs before welding them to the rockers.
oh and apexjoe, NICE avatar!!!!
 
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