Homemade Oil Pan Skid

[dvanbramer88]

A while back i had 2 big sheets of 3/16th steel in my scrap pile. Me and Josh have been talking about making a skid plate. I put 2 and 2 together and the wheels started turning. I made a cardboard template. My dad has a lot of steel working equipment at work including MIG and TIG welders. I gave him the template and a sheet to take to work. He came back with this first rough draft.


(I know the drain plug guard is on the wrong side, he messed up following directions) I ground it off and re-welded it on the correct side this morning.


Test fit before a little bit of trimming


(Welded my initials into it, on the rear "fold")


Orange base coats.


Flat black top coats. (Scratches should appear as orange, deeper gashes should be white.)

I didn't take a picture of it, But i reinforced the space between the oil pan and front "fold" by welding angle iron to the top side forming a triangle.

Took about 4 hours to move and re-weld the box, trim, and grind the edges, bend it, and paint it up.

[bartonmd]

Good job!

A couple things I'll just throw out there...

1. Looks like you're using the corners of the box as the "drains", but I highly suggest against that. The corners are what gives it strength. I would weld the corners up completely, and have a hole in the bottom for a drain.

2. The weld with your initials in it has a lot of porosity in it. What flow rate was the gas set at? Looks like the gas was set low, or the shield cup to tip was clogged up with spatter.

Mike

[dvanbramer88]

Good job!

A couple things I'll just throw out there...

1. Looks like you're using the corners of the box as the "drains", but I highly suggest against that. The corners are what gives it strength. I would weld the corners up completely, and have a hole in the bottom for a drain.

2. The weld with your initials in it has a lot of porosity in it. What flow rate was the gas set at? Looks like the gas was set low, or the shield cup to tip was clogged up with spatter.

Mike

I didn't weld the corners because i felt it was too big of a gap to fill. But ill try and figure something out.

I was using a 70amp stick welder. 6010 rods. My initials were really crappy. I turned the amps down so I didn't blow through and i had a hard time keeping an arc at the lower power. Also I didn't clean them up that much so you see alot of slag too.

[bartonmd]

Take a piece of angle iron and cut it the length of the height of the box, then put it on the outside and weld inside and out, and all around it.

70A (110V) stick welder makes sense... Not nearly enough heat for any kind of good sized rods. Don't want to use rods thicker than 1/8" at the very most, and you're moving too fast. You have to go really slow with anything 110V. If you're getting porosity on a stick weld with material that's even somewhat sort of clean-ish, you need to move slower.

Mike

[dvanbramer88]

Take a piece of angle iron and cut it the length of the height of the box, then put it on the outside and weld inside and out, and all around it.

70A (110V) stick welder makes sense... Not nearly enough heat for any kind of good sized rods. Don't want to use rods thicker than 1/8" at the very most, and you're moving too fast. You have to go really slow with anything 110V. If you're getting porosity on a stick weld with material that's even somewhat sort of clean-ish, you need to move slower.

Mike

Thanks for the advice. And yes, where i welded i ground the paint off with the grinder first, so it was very clean. I was also thinking the same thing, using scraps of angle to cover the corners. I've got plenty of it. Do you recommend a good amperage/rod combination? I have trouble holding an arc at lower temps, so i was working at 70 amp and working quickly. I was getting ideal penetration on the plate, but it would erode the edge of the angle a little bit.

(if you know what a back plate in a large control panel looks like, that's what the two sheets of steel I had were. I cut the rolled edge off to make my own angle. Which worked perfect because it was the same thickness as the plate. My dad torch cut the basic outline at work and i used a sawzall to trim it.)

[dvanbramer88]

I was using primarily 3/32 rods. I also have, and used a few 5/64 rods.

[bartonmd]

Take a piece of angle iron and cut it the length of the height of the box, then put it on the outside and weld inside and out, and all around it.

70A (110V) stick welder makes sense... Not nearly enough heat for any kind of good sized rods. Don't want to use rods thicker than 1/8" at the very most, and you're moving too fast. You have to go really slow with anything 110V. If you're getting porosity on a stick weld with material that's even somewhat sort of clean-ish, you need to move slower.

Mike

Thanks for the advice. And yes, where i welded i ground the paint off with the grinder first, so it was very clean. I was also thinking the same thing, using scraps of angle to cover the corners. I've got plenty of it. Do you recommend a good amperage/rod combination? I have trouble holding an arc at lower temps, so i was working at 70 amp and working quickly. I was getting ideal penetration on the plate, but it would erode the edge of the angle a little bit.

(if you know what a back plate in a large control panel looks like, that's what the two sheets of steel I had were. I cut the rolled edge off to make my own angle. Which worked perfect because it was the same thickness as the plate. My dad torch cut the basic outline at work and i used a sawzall to trim it.)

I'm a little confused... You said 3/16" above, but the way you're talking, and the way it looks, I'm going to guess you meant 3/32? Those are usually 12ga, depending on the cabinet size, which is .1046, and 3/16" is .188. Kyle has a little 110V ~100A stick welder, and we were getting "pretty good" penetration on 7ga (.179) cranked all the way up, going really slow, with 1/8" rods.

Mike

[dvanbramer88]

Yes, it is 3/32. My mistake. The reason i said ideal penetration, On the back side of where i was welding, you could see the bead line.

[bartonmd]

Yes, it is 3/32. My mistake. The reason i said ideal penetration, On the back side of where i was welding, you could see the bead line.

OK, yeah, I'd belive you were having problems with burning through with stick and 3/32" if you didn't turn it down really low... I think the rule of thumb for stick is not to use a rod thicker than your base material, so you were really close in there, but I don't do much stick welding.

Mike

[dvanbramer88]

I manned up and welded 3 of the four corners. I made myself learn how to hold an arc at lower heat, about 45 amps, and worked very slow to fill the gaps. I made 2 passes inside and 2 passes outside. It worked good. The fourth gap was very wide and i used the piece of angle iron and welded all around, inside and out. It looks a lot stronger.


The piece of angle is the front right corner. My welds are as ugly as sin, but I am confident in the skid plate. I made it myself in my own backyard with relatively basic tools. I'm proud of it.


painting it back up. I remembered a drain hole.


and here is my reinforcements for in front of the oil pan. (I finished that weld on the right hand piece of angle, the gap was wide because it warped from the heat and the way the clamp was holding it, i made a shim and slid it under to fill the gab and just welded over the seams.)

[bartonmd]

For what it's doing, I'm sure it'll be alright. I'm not going to lie. It looks really, really porosity-filled-booger-welded, but you'd be surprised how well even the nastiest booger-weld holds up if you don't stress it 100%. Hell, the mud-bogger guys in FL would call you down there to weld their suspension and stacked frames up, beause your welds look better than theirs do, and their stuff mostly stays together... Would I tow a trailer with a hitch that was welded like that? No, and I'm sure you wouldn't, either. It's probably fine for what it is, though.

ETA: The other thing about the porosity is, how old are those rods, and where were they stored??? Moisture in the air soaks into the coating on the rods (that turns into the slag), and after they get a certain % of moisture in them, it degrades how much inertion it can give around the weld, causing porosity. Make sure your rods are either:
1. new
2. Stored in the refrigerator
3. Stored in an air-tight electrode holder

Mike

[dvanbramer88]

I'm not going to lie, i weld like crap, HAHA. But for all intents and purposes, It will certainly work better than the factory plastic "skid."
And it only cost me a $7 box of rods. And I wouldn't trust anything structural with welds like that either, But i highly doubt that it will get sheared off by a rock.

But i do appreciate all the advice and encouragement.

[dvanbramer88]

ETA: The other thing about the porosity is, how old are those rods, and where were they stored??? Moisture in the air soaks into the coating on the rods (that turns into the slag), and after they get a certain % of moisture in them, it degrades how much inertion it can give around the weld, causing porosity. Make sure your rods are either:
1. new
2. Stored in the refrigerator
3. Stored in an air-tight electrode holder

Mike

My bigger rods are old as hell and have been in the shop at my dads work for years. The smaller rods i bought 2 weeks ago. I used the smaller rods exclusively today. Yesterday, I almost exclusively used the old rods.

[The Roadie]

...But i highly doubt that it will get sheared off by a rock. ...

As long as you don't drive anywhere near ....... rocks.

[dvanbramer88]

...But i highly doubt that it will get sheared off by a rock. ...

As long as you don't drive anywhere near ....... rocks.

Great, that makes me feel a lot more confident about it....

[bartonmd]

As long as you don't drive anywhere near ....... rocks.

Great, that makes me feel a lot more confident about it....

Eh... There's a reason I did a somewhat solid "pyramid" of stacked up plates... I was concerned about even a 7ga (.179") "box" failing if somebody was going 15mph down a mostly smooth road with rocks in the middle (think the fire trails at TECORE), and smacked the part sticking down on a rock. For normal, slow speed abraision, I'd think it'd be fine, especially given the thin nature of the plate isn't going to take the full weight of the front end, anyway. But then, Bill's plastic skid had a pretty deep and well defined dent in the door from the drain plug, so we know the oil pan will take some weight.

Mike

[The Roadie]

I've pried 1/2" rocks OUT of the gouges they made in the pyramid of Mike's #1 prototype aluminum plate (now on DirtyBacon's truck). Since then I upgraded to his steel version, and feel like I am wearing an armored jock strap. Homemade is fine, but as long as you know it's there to make noise to get your attention when you hit a rock at slow speed, and not to come crashing down off a 12" ledge onto it. Just have realistic expectations. You should see the FRAME dents on DirtyBacon's and my trucks, and then you'd understand better the level of threat out there we're trying to survive.

We also scrape our bellies enough to see the benefit of rock washers or welded rings to protect the mounting bolt heads, which you might not need unless you go and commit a lot of scrapeage.

[dvanbramer88]

Eh... There's a reason I did a somewhat solid "pyramid" of stacked up plates... I was concerned about even a 7ga (.179") "box" failing if somebody was going 15mph down a mostly smooth road with rocks in the middle (think the fire trails at TECORE), and smacked the part sticking down on a rock. For normal, slow speed abraision, I'd think it'd be fine, especially given the thin nature of the plate isn't going to take the full weight of the front end, anyway. But then, Bill's plastic skid had a pretty deep and well defined dent in the door from the drain plug, so we know the oil pan will take some weight.

Mike

I know exactly why you did the stacked pyramid. It is hands down a better design. The pyramid has that angled edge that will redirect force. This is just what i had available to me, and what my dad was willing to do at work on his breaks. I'm using cave-man technology. And i will add, the TB oil pan does look pretty beefy.

And certainly, if you hit anything like that hard enough it's going to come off. (smacking it off a rock at 15 mph) But a slow speed "rock crawl" abrasion situation, i also think it would be fine, the plate will deflect upwards a little bit and the box may even deform some. But even I was concerned about the box and its strength from the beginning.

Homemade is fine, but as long as you know it's there to make noise to get your attention when you hit a rock at slow speed, and not to come crashing down off a 12" ledge onto it. Just have realistic expectations. You should see the FRAME dents on DirtyBacon's and my trucks, and then you'd understand better the level of threat out there we're trying to survive.

We also scrape our bellies enough to see the benefit of rock washers or welded rings to protect the mounting bolt heads, which you might not need unless you go and commit a lot of scrapeage.

Exactly. In all the wheeling Josh and I have done in the past 3 years, including his first, stock TB, we never did anything that required a skid plate. Now that he has one, we aren't going to set out with the intention of depending on it. It is there for "just in case" and i feel that it will serve that purpose just fine.

[fishsticks]

But a slow speed "rock crawl" abrasion situation, i also think it would be fine,

A slow speed "rock crawl" did this to my skid plate. Be careful out there.

[navigator]

Hi Dave, I plan to build one at some point. When I complete mine we can compete for ugliest welds!