Frame Plating - how I did it

Just finished plating the frame rails on my junk. Just plated from the LCA to the rear spring hanges for now using 3" x 4" x 1/4" angle. Wasnt too hard to do and took maybe 5 hours total to get both sides done.

What I started with - 5' of angle




Dropped the xmember down to allow room to work, supported by a jack stand


Cut to make the angle fit around the spring hanger


Tesfit and marking up the angle for bolt holes, the cuts to allow for the bend in the frame and rossette holes


Close up of how the angle fits around the spring hanger


Shot of how the angle will fit between the frame and the xmember


Rossette holes done, cuts to allow for the bends in the frame done and the xmember holes are done




Frame cleaned up and ready for welding


I forgot to get pics of using a floor jack to put the angle into position and force it to follow the bends in the frame. Here it is all welded up tho


Welds all cleaned up and ready for paint


Painting done and ready for the rocks!


I hope this helps some people who plan on doing something similar. I havent driven around enuf yet to notice wether or not anything has gotten stiffer in the body but I will follow up with that later.

All of my pics from today can be found here: Frame Plating

Great writeup... let us know how she goes next time out.

Brian T.

Nicely done...

Not entirely off topic but in situations where one wishes to use C-channel instead of angle, what's the recommended fix for the lip shown in this pic?



Do you hammer/bend it up/flat or cut it off?

I know if you cut it off you lose a little integrity, but does the C-Channel make up for it?

Not trying to hijack thread, but this pic shows the lip pretty clearly... Just curious..

Gil BullyKatz said:

Nicely done...

Not entirely off topic but in situations where one wishes to use C-channel instead of angle, what's the recommended fix for the lip shown in this pic?

Do you hammer/bend it up/flat or cut it off?

I know if you cut it off you lose a little integrity, but does the C-Channel make up for it?

Not trying to hijack thread, but this pic shows the lip pretty clearly... Just curious..

Click to expand...

or

Okie Terry said:

or

Click to expand...

Thank's...

'zactly what I thought!

Gil, I would hammer it up, pinch seams are good for strength so keep them if you can.

xtremewlr, good writeup, but I think 3/16 would be more than sufficient. what was your main reason for doing this? it will certainly protect the frame rails from being crushed by rocks and provide good mounting points for suspension and rockrails, but as has been discussed here before, I don't think that will offer much to increasing the chassis resistance to twisting.

Gil BullyKatz said:

Nicely done...

Not entirely off topic but in situations where one wishes to use C-channel instead of angle, what's the recommended fix for the lip shown in this pic?

Do you hammer/bend it up/flat or cut it off?

I know if you cut it off you lose a little integrity, but does the C-Channel make up for it?

Not trying to hijack thread, but this pic shows the lip pretty clearly... Just curious..

Click to expand...

I dont consider it a hijcak since that is one reason I decided to go the angle route. I didnt want the extra hassle of figuring out what to do with that lip. :cheers:

BrettM said:

Gil, I would hammer it up, pinch seams are good for strength so keep them if you can.

xtremewlr, good writeup, but I think 3/16 would be more than sufficient. what was your main reason for doing this? it will certainly protect the frame rails from being crushed by rocks and provide good mounting points for suspension and rockrails, but as has been discussed here before, I don't think that will offer much to increasing the chassis resistance to twisting.

Click to expand...

Sure, 3/16" would probably be fine but why go thinner when the 1/4" was available and I only spent $28 on the steel including the single cut (was originally a 10" peice). There is just under 50 lbs of steel that I added, maybe a couple lbs more with the welds so the added weight of 1/4" is negligable. Torsional stiffness will come with a cage but I have noticed that some of the creaks and groans that I had before are gone. The main reason for this project was to protect the frame rails from being bashed in.

looks good , also i think good write up

Gil BullyKatz said:

Thank's...

'zactly what I thought!

Click to expand...

Yeah, that's what I thought too... but when I did mine with C channel, I couldn't hammer nearly enough to get the channel to fit over it. I ended up notching it to fit and decided that was a better way to do it afterall. My channel was 4" wide, 1/4" thick though, so yours may be different.
Billy

Bump for the morning crowd.

Morning crowd here. Looks great. I'm planning something very similar on mine. I'm also more interested in protection than rigidity at this point. How did you get all that steel for $28?

Dr. Jones said:

Morning crowd here. Looks great. I'm planning something very similar on mine. I'm also more interested in protection than rigidity at this point. How did you get all that steel for $28?

Click to expand...

All that steel, it's just 10' of angle. That price sounds a bit high to me, but when you buy so little they gouge you a bit. When I worked at a steel distributer, that went for 20cents per pound on a 2 ton order, small orders were like 50 cents per pound.

That same piece here is $45 unless I happen to find one in the scrap pile, then it is sold by weight.

Dr. Jones said:

That same piece here is $45 unless I happen to find one in the scrap pile, then it is sold by weight.

Click to expand...

The peice I found was what they called a rem. It was sold by weight. I just got lucky in that it was exactly 10' long.

just a question, but if your main purpose is to protect the frame rails, why not incorperate your frame rail portecters into your cross vehicle skid plateing?
Just seems to me that it would acomplish the same thing and also be provideing underbelly protection.

got a question for you, or anyone else who has plated their framerails.

it's hard to tell from the pics, but it doesn;t look like there are any rossette welds on the bottom of the framerail? I was wondering why not? Wouldn't that only help spread the load over the entire framerail...instead of just one side?

Just curious, because I plan on tackling this in the near future.

Thanks!

cyrus said:

just a question, but if your main purpose is to protect the frame rails, why not incorperate your frame rail portecters into your cross vehicle skid plateing?
Just seems to me that it would acomplish the same thing and also be provideing underbelly protection.

Click to expand...

Havent gotten that far yet. The frame plating needs to come first as it is the basis for the rest of the underbelly armor to come.

IntrepidXJ said:

got a question for you, or anyone else who has plated their framerails.

it's hard to tell from the pics, but it doesn;t look like there are any rossette welds on the bottom of the framerail? I was wondering why not? Wouldn't that only help spread the load over the entire framerail...instead of just one side?

Just curious, because I plan on tackling this in the near future.

Thanks!

Click to expand...

I thought about doing that. I didnt tho because when I make a new cross member and skid plates, they will bolt to the bottom and the sides of the frame plating. The other thing I will do at that time is weld the over hang on the inside of the frame. Just less holes to drill for now. You can see how the 4" side is on the bottom of the frame and over hangs to the inside of it in this pic which will allow me to run some beads in there and accomplish something similar to doing rossestte welds.

I hate to bring up old threads, but I'd really like to see the pictures that were here, it seems like they were rather detailed. And with the face that the jackstand broke through my framerail today, I'm thinking I need to plate the framerails.