• Garage Projects

    The Lone Ranger – Ugly Gas Tank Skid

    Just a simple frame around the BII tank: Slap some ¼” scrap plate on the bottom that I had laying around: Then I promptly ignored finishing the skid and just wheeled it like that. Even with it hanging down kinda low, it was very rare for me to tag it. When I did, it was usually when climbing ledges/waterfalls. A few of those waterfalls put me at such an angle that the gas tank was still in danger when I…

  • Garage Projects

    The Lone Ranger – Ugly Exo

    Let me start out by saying that I’m no pro when it comes to bending tube or making cages, so don’t copy my design or work, or else it might kill you. That said, the last exo I built (for my now defunct XJ) held up amazingly well to the abuse I threw at it so I don’t doubt that this cage should survive my abuse. Also, as this is built out of 1.25”x.120 wall DOM, it might be better…

  • Garage Projects

    The Lone Ranger – Sliders

    I’ll start off by saying I’m not real happy with how these turned out. I wanted to go ahead and cut out the rockers to get a bit more clearance, but wound up leaving them lower to make it easier for the wife to get in and out. We’ll see how I like them after my first trip out, but for right now they’ll do. Since I’m cheap, I started out with some drop 2x5x1/4 wall tube that was a…

  • Garage Projects

    The Lone Ranger – Belly Skid

    In my XJ, I had actually spend some time making a ‘contoured’ transfer case/tranny skid. That resulted in decent ground clearance, but also meant that I always wound up high centered on one of the nooks of the skid. So this time, I gave up some clearance in order to have a flat belly. The net result is that I only lost about ¾” and I now have a stupidly stout (and heavy) skid. This thing pretty much threw weight…

  • Garage Projects

    The Lone Ranger – Rear Bumper Air Tank

    The rear bumper isn’t anything special, Just some ¼” wall 4×5 that Is capped off to be an air tank in the future (If I remember my measurements right, its about a 4 gallon tank size) . I took the center section to work and milled a hole for the receiver mount. After that was completed, I burned on the end caps and receiver: And burned on the truck: At this point I started playing with the side tubes some.…