Prinsu Wind-Deflector: no light-bar, no problem

Picked up a Prinsu rack for my 2nd-gen DCSB off Craigslist and the previous owner had a light-bar, which I didn't want.

After a while I got annoyed with the "gap" so figured I'd patch it.

Some shots/notes below for anyone interested.


Sorry, dirty truck, but here is the "gap"




And with the part on the bench:



I measured it up and bought a strip of 2.5" x 42.5: x 3/16" aluminum (6061T6) and chopped a three cuts of 1/4" 1.75" angle bracket and trimmed the sides to 1.75"x1.0":




then drilled both faces, entered, one at 7mm and the other I drilled and tapped to 1/4 x 20:



With this done, I hit all of the material with 120 grit on the orbital sander:





Then I anodised the brackets (nerd!) and gave the strip of aluminum two coats of Duplicator Alu self-etch primer and a coat of (Toyota as it happens) DupliColor PerfectMatch Black:







24 hours of cure time and I installed on the truck:






I guess not a perfect match, but not too shabby, right?


Anyone done this before or something similar?

 

Oh, and for anyone interested, this was a jam-jar anodising setup, totally home-brew with some leftover battery acid and a bottle of black dye: