DIY: Increase Approach Angle with Modified Skid and Bumper

Practice, watch YouTube videos, practice more, and repeat. Do random projects. You’ll get better over time. Welding is very much a “learn by doing” thing.

 

Yeah, I got a stick welder as my first one; probably not the best idea. I'm gonna get a mig. You ever heard of someone turning their 0 degree sliders into positive degree ones? Lol

 

That sounds like wayyy too much effort. You’d have to cut it off right at the leg, grind the sliders smooth, re-notch the legs and weld it back together. I agree on the mig, it’s great for 99% of things on these trucks.

 

I'm now doing everything myself. I've got a buddy (welder by trade) and we're making several bed bars among other things.

I bought the Miller welder, Miller plasma cutter, material (all the steel), flap discs, grinders, tables, clamps, squares, etc.

I'm doing all the pre and post prep and everything else. I'm learning how to weld hell or high water.

 

That’s awesome to hear. Welding is such an incredibly handy tool to have at your disposal. If you ever add a tube bender, even more possibilities open up.

 

I'll buy one, show me one that works and affordable. I looked and the prices are all over the place. The less welding and more bending the better!

 

Benders are expensive AF, I have about a grand into my setup. That said, here’s a decent budget one. won’t be winning any races but it will get the job done.

https://www.affordablebender.com/collections/affordable-benders-tube-notchers

 

Thx, I'll look into this. My only fear is if you overbend, do you just scrap the whole piece? Probably no worse than all the short cuts I've wasted.

 

Unfortunately yes. I scrapped a lot of tube on my first project, mainly because of messing up the notching

 

Looks sweet. This is on my To do list.

 

How'd you go about cutting that thick material for the recovery points sans plasma?

 

You can buy precut recovery points all over the web. I got these specific ones from ebay for like $30.

 

Oh cool.

 

I’m going to be chopping that portion of the frame on my soon, glad I stumbled across this. I have an all pro bumper so all I’ll need to do is modify my skid to fit like you did and potentially add an additional frame support to brace the winch better… where did you relocate the trans lines to?

 

Luckily I’m a manual trans so I don’t have those lines there.

 

I ended up doing a Coastal off road extreme high clearance bumper and skid plate.

 

Chris, I just zip tied everything down to the bottom. There’s plenty of slack. Here’s what I did- the side tubes are welded in but the center piece is removable. I run a thin, easily replaceable skid on top of it.

 

Looks great! I need to check it out this weekend.

 

You gonna be at the gate when I pull up?

 

Yes sir