how i built my roll pan | Page 3 | Ford Explorer Forums - Serious Explorations

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how i built my roll pan

waring: i will not take any responsibilities if you build this, get into a accident, and have damage to your or someone else's vehicle.


ok everyone, i wanted to buy a roll pan for my explorer, but could not find anywhere to get it (until 3 days after i finished my truck, someone posted a like to a place, but mine only cost me $30, verses $300, as well mine is made from bumpers, not sheet metal). i saw tara's explorer on here(a.k.a. explorersport77) and shot her a email asking for some pictures of her roll pan (which she was very kind to do), as well as the number to the body shop, and a person to talk to. i called them to ask a few questions. his name was jon, and he was very helpful. he had told me that it was made from 3 different bumpers, as well as it was un-boltable (meaning that you can unbolt it, and put it back on). the gears started to roll.

because of unknown rust on my truck, i was facing doing rust repair on it, and repainting it anyways, i figured, i want to build me one of them!

as luck has it, i am a former body man, and even luckier, i now work at a scrap yard, and part of it shreds cars. i told a few friends there to watch for any explorers with undamaged rear bumpers. a buddy called me to tell me 3 of them got dropped off on the same day. a hour later, i had the start to my little project. total cost $0 :D.

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after i was finished making this, i found a easier way to do it (i will let you know at the end of this), but i will show you how i did it first.

i started by taking off my rear bumper. now this for me was the hardest part. when i was talking to jon, he told me that they had to cut the rear frame horns, as well as a portion of the rear cross member. i didn't like that idea, but it has to be done in order to suck everything in close enough to the body. with the gate closed, and the trusty eye-crometer, i grabbed a sharpie, and drew out where i had to cut. if you look, you can see the picture of explorersport77 truck taped to the rear quarter for reference, as well as moral support (and yes that fat little ******* making all the sparks is me).

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and the aftermath!

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i kept the parts that i cut off, just in case i ever, for what ever reason i have to put the stock bumper back on. i just have weld them into place, and i am good to go. i must also say that, by cutting these parts off, you will no longer be able to use your spare tire anymore. for me it didn't matter anyway, i have had the truck for 3 years, and it never came out for use, as a matter of fact, when it did take it out, it was flat anyways (a lot of good that would have been!).

so now i focused on the bumpers that i had. i cut one at it's flattest point from the center out, and from the flattest point, from the top down (this will be used for the bottom of the roll pan). the second one, i cut from the flattest point from the center out, as the flattest parts going up and down (this will be used for the upper part of the roll pan).

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once again, wondering around work one day, a found a big chunk of 1/4 diamond plate. with a little begging, i was able to walk out of the gate with it as well. total cost of bumpers + diamond plate = $0 :D:D

by the way you don't need to use diamond plate, or any plate for that matter. the reason why i used this was i thought it would look neat, as well as the cost $0!

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i took off the stock plastic filler panel, and used it as a template to mark two slots to clear the pinch welds by the tail lights. i then slid it under my tail gate. supported by a few blocks of wood on the underside of the plate, and a jack, i traced out my tail gate onto it, and had a pattern to cut from.

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what i did next was take the upper parts (the second bumper i cut), and tack it to the diamond plate.

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at this point, i took the third bumper that i had, and used it to join the ends together.

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*****here is where i would have done things a little different, but i will tell you at the end.

next, seeings how i was painting the truck anyways, i tacked the plate to the rear quarters so it would stay in place. i had to bend the ends out a little bit to match the curves of the ground effects (my truck is a sport, but i think it is the same if you don't have ground effects). you can use what ever means to bend them, but i had a torch on hand, so i heated them up, and used a 3 lb sledge to get it to the shape i needed.

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as you can see by the black line i drew in the bumper, there was a little overhang. that's ok, you can cut that away, but it must fallow they body line in the ground effect, or quarter filler panel, which ever you have.

once that was done, i then took the lower parts (the first bumper i cut), and tacked them on, making sure, they to followed the curve of the (in my case) ground effect. you shouldn't have to bend this around, it will follow it. i also made it as tight as possible to the ground effect, because i was going to add some plate for capping the ends off.

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and did the same for the other side. i then used some more of the third bumper as a filler for the center.

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the trailer hitch part of the bumpers bolt on, so what i did was cut the ends of one off, and used them as the mounting brackets. i crawled under the truck to find a hole from the factory in the frame, so i used that, and drilled a second hole for a second bolt for the brackets. i bolted them to the frame, after i ground them to fit the roll pan. i used one washer between the bracket and the frame and tacked them to the roll pan. the reason why you what to put a washer there is if you bolt it in with out a small gape, you will have a impossible time sliding the roll pan off, or on.

drivers side bracket

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passengers side bracket.

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after i got to this point, i notice that the tail pipe now sticks out a good 4 inches or so. what i did was cut it, slid it back on so there wasn't much of a over hang, marked where that was and cut the unwanted portion of pipe, and re-welded the end back on.

i now took the bumper off to weld everything up, as well as to cut the ugly over hang off the very bottom.

trust me, this thing is heavy!

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with the bumper off, i traced out some end caps where the bumper meets up to the ground effect.

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i also filled in the gap at the corners with some 16 gauge metal. i had to hammer, and weld, and hammer and weld until the shape was what i wanted. then i bolted the roll pan back on to get the correct gap between the roll pan, and the ground effect.

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this is after i cut it

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and now with the end cap in place

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now the bodywork

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primer

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paint

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and installed

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the only cost to me was i had to buy sand for sandblasting it before i did the bodywork to it.

now, what i would have done different was, when i cut the plate, instead of welding the bumper parts to it, i would have made the end caps for it, wielded them on. then i would have welded the bumper parts onto it. it would have saved some time.

speaking of time, i am sure some of you want to know how long this took. to make it, i would have to say about 30 hours. it is hard to say because i spent about two weeks making it, and that was a few hours here and there, plus i wasn't working on it every day (i some how threw my back out sand blasting it some how.....must be all the cheeseburgers i have stored above my belt!). the body work, maybe about 5 to 6 hours. prime, and paint, i cant realy remember. i just remeber asking jon how long they spent on tara's roll pan, and he said about 40 hours from start to finish. so i was kind of close.

once again, i want to thank tara for her help (she is probably tired of the thank yous by now, i think i have said it about 5 times to her already), and jon, but i can remember what shop he was at. i think this is better then any fiberglass, or sheet metal roll pan for the simple fact is, if you get nailed with one of those on, it will crumble, and you will have a lot of damage to your truck. with this, you will still have some damage, not as much, but your also going to cause damage to the sum-***** who just hit you!
 



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Wow... I never noticed the rear roll bumper.. I knew you had done the custom front bumper... Great Work, I'm going to school right now for auto collision repair, which I'll end up being a bodyman. You should totally find a 5.0 explorer/mounty wrecked or blown motor... We rebuilt mine and it runs like a champ. I love the more torque so much... I do have to say that I'm not liking my awd..

Again great job...
 



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i watched your v8 conversion thread from your first post.
well done, you made it look very easy (and we all know its not)! :thumbsup:
right now i have two different members here, in two different provinces keeping there eyes open for a wreaked or somewhat cheap v8 explorer for me. i also have seen other pictures of your truck, and i like the over all look. not to big or small of a lift, and not to big or small of a tire. very well balanced. also, the two tone color combo on it (the white and orange), IMO, you nailed it. very nice. i think you will do well in your coarse.

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this also reminds me that i should post a picture of evil, and tara's truck hotness together (this was at carlisle all ford nationals from this summer), and this was also the truck that i copied (yes, copied to a certain extent). tara was amazed if i am not wrong on how well it looked just by going off a few pictures that she emailed me. she took a few pictures to show the shop that made hers. still not sure if she likes my pan/bumper better or not. :D
 












No kidding--when are the mass produced bumpers coming out??

How is the paint holding up on both of your Sport Moldings?
 












hotness looks......well, hot! are you talking about the factory flares, and rockers? if so, they are no different then the plastic bumpers that are found on most newer cars today. as long as they dont get a hard, or direct shot to them, they will be fine (at worst you might see a little spidering, but once again, that's if it takes a hard direct hit).
 






Both of those explorers look GREAT... and thanks for all the complements about mine ... I actually will be forced to repaint my explorer ... it'll still be the two-tone orange and white ... but I'm planning on making it alittle bit brighter of an orange ... I have some huge trail rash marks on my passenger door and some more rocker rust to fix ...
 






That looks amazing man! I absolutely love it, amazing work on both the front and rear bumpers, along with your whole Expo!
 






axial32, look into a color called sunburt orange 2 (its a GM color found on grand am's) we did my friends s10 that color. has some peal, and metallics in it. its a really nice color.
thanks brainDye
 






that's actually was the original color we started with, then my cousin did his additions to it. But idk what I will do exactly...
thanks, though
 






just updating this thread if anyone has seen it. for those that may have a doubt on how strong this was, look these pictures.

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long story short, backed into a overhead door frame. blew the back glass out, gate smashed to hell, but the pan as a dent 2 inches high, and around 4 inches wide and some of the filler has cracked. thats what stopped me dead. so yea, its pretty strong. and for those that said "shave the wiper arm", it will no longer be in the gate when its fixed.
 






Another cool idea would be to get rid of the glass popper and just urethane the glass in. Shave the wiper, squirter AND the popper.
Then mold in the tag lights.

If you have the time that is.
 






i would, however, insurance is paying to fix it. the body shop got me a gate with no holes in it except the lock button. the only reason why i want it still is sometimes it locks, and sometimes it wont with the door locks, and vise versa. as for everything else, i will leave it the way it is. the guy that flamed it might do some art work on the gate as well. i left that call to him.
 






Cant wait to see it finished. Great job again on the roll pan, that is stout! Re: flames on the back, I think it would look great either way. Re: urethane the glass in, have had 2 SUV's where the back glass doesnt open. Drove me crazy. When my truck is in the garage, the tailgate open would hit the garage door open. The back glass being able to pop open makes it possible to put things in and out when having the tailgate closed.
 






clean look, might have to attempt this myself
 






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