Brody
November 11th, 2009, 06:31 PM
Khal brought in his much abused front kid plate Sunday so that I could do a little straightening and strengthening on it. Both sides were bent upwards and the 'U' shaped mounting brackets kept getting bent off to the side. The ends of the skid plate, a rather substantial piece of 3/16" steel were actually bent up and one side was bent up over 3/4s of an inch. I was able to get the plate to within 1/4' of being straight all the way across, which I called good enough. My arm was tired from hammering with a 5 pound hammer at any rate...
I added a 1" vertical piece of steel all along the rear weak side of the skid, following the contour of the plate. This was welded all along the facing edge and then tack welded on the back side. To reinforce the 'U' brackets, I welded a piece of steel to one side which was also tied into the new 1" piece. As the brackets were bending on a non reinforced section that incorporated an bend, I took two pieces of 1" angle, spanned the bend and tied them into both sides of the bend plus the outside corner piece.
The next thing he asked me to do was to design and fabricate some mounting plates for his Hi Lift jack. He wanted to mount it under the front of the rear seat , which is actually an ideal location for this in an FJC. I thought this was pretty damn clever. I made a template for the existing seat mount brackets, then made a mount to fit using the existing bolt and hole in the existing bracket. The mount has a floor plate that will have a rubber bumper on it with an optional mounting hole if that is desired. I'll post pictures of the installed mounts when he brings his rig over this weekend.
Here are the pictures so far:
Where as it may still bend, it will take a lot more to bend it than what it took before. This added some much needed strengthening where it was needed most on this particular design.
I added a 1" vertical piece of steel all along the rear weak side of the skid, following the contour of the plate. This was welded all along the facing edge and then tack welded on the back side. To reinforce the 'U' brackets, I welded a piece of steel to one side which was also tied into the new 1" piece. As the brackets were bending on a non reinforced section that incorporated an bend, I took two pieces of 1" angle, spanned the bend and tied them into both sides of the bend plus the outside corner piece.
The next thing he asked me to do was to design and fabricate some mounting plates for his Hi Lift jack. He wanted to mount it under the front of the rear seat , which is actually an ideal location for this in an FJC. I thought this was pretty damn clever. I made a template for the existing seat mount brackets, then made a mount to fit using the existing bolt and hole in the existing bracket. The mount has a floor plate that will have a rubber bumper on it with an optional mounting hole if that is desired. I'll post pictures of the installed mounts when he brings his rig over this weekend.
Here are the pictures so far:
Where as it may still bend, it will take a lot more to bend it than what it took before. This added some much needed strengthening where it was needed most on this particular design.