went out with my buddies one day and took the wrong line down a rock ledge and landed on my gas tank so hard it dented my floor board up and broke my fuel sending unit so i decided it was time for some armor but didnt wanna shell out the cash to buy one since all the beefy ones were over the $200 mark so i found a fab guy around here that has a huge break and shear and stocks a lot of plate steel i went with 3/16" it weighs about 80lbs all together
first off heres my inspiration for the project

i started by making a template out of a strip of some 1/16" steel (sorry no pics of that part) but it was pretty straight forward just bent it to follow the contour of the gas tank then took it to the fab shop and had him bend the plate steel to match my template and had him sheer and bend the side pieces and ended up with this


heres a little test fit on the jeep


we got it all mocked up and drilled some holes it mounts to the frame rails using the factory nutstrips from my hitch and also uses 3 more bolt holes in the back under where the rear bumper mounts we welded the outside while it was on the jeep then took it off and fully welded the inside too also drilled a couple more holes at the lowest spot for drain holes got it all painted and and put it back on


it ended up being way!!! cheaper than ordering one from some where else and im pretty happy with the results let me know what you think

 

Looks good, nice work.

 

also started building my winch bumper used aj's offroad bumper mount plates and wasnt very happy with them it took em a month to get here cause they forgot to ship em and when i did get em i realized they dont even go back all the way to the last bolt hole that goes through the unibody rail but oh well then i got a piece of 1/4" for the bottom and a bunch of 1.75" .120 wall hrew tube and started bending




ill have some more finished pics soon its all painted i just gotta wire up the winch and install it

 

Both look really good! Very nice job on the tank skid! I'm not a huge fan of tube bumpers on XJ's, but that one looks really nice. Looking forward to seeing the end product.

 

Lets see some more of that bumper

 

heres some more almost finished pics of the bumper painted and mounted with the winch all wired up i moved the solenoid under the hood instead of having that stupid box on top of the winch im also gonna put an in cab switch and have the plug in for the controller mounted up front somewhere so i can use it from either place also got the stinger on today just gotta paint er up and its all done next is a tube rear bumper ,3x3 angle iron frame stiffeners and to replace the rockers with 3/16" 2x6 rectangle tube and im sure there will be more ! and now for the pics






hope you enjoy it as much as i do

 

Looks very nice. I love the tank skid, need one for my 97.

 

Very nice work. The gas tank skid looks very clean, and the bumper just looks fantastic.

 

i like this setup of this bumper real clean

 

Great bumper!

 

Gas tank is sweet. Would you build some and sell them? I wanna get one but dont wanna shell out around 250 bucks for one. Bumper is sick. Love the stinger.

 

thats one of the best lookin tube bumpers i've seen. nice job! the gas tank skid also "rocks".

 

thanks ive thought about makin more of the gas tank skids and sellin em theres a lot of stuff i would have to figure out also on all the aftermarket tank skids websites theres a break between 96 and under and 97 and up im not really sure what the difference is ? and shipping a 70-80lb hunk of metal would be spendy

 

I like the way your top hoop is setup. I have seen more than one that in my opinion stick way too far forward. Yours seems like a good angle.

 

great job on both