Roll Pan Fabrication

During the bed fabrication, I also started to construct the roll pan. I wasn't sure what I was after on the pan other than I wanted it to blend to the bed, be even with the bottom of the rear fenders, and be removable.



When the bed was being constructed, I clamped the fenders into position so that I could determine how to make the stake pockets sweep down even with the fender bottoms.



I positioned a flange at the lower part of the stake pocket that would allow the pan to be bolted on. The flange was positioned where the pan would be flush with the stake pocket. Initially I intended to bolt the pan on with polished button head bolts, but later decided to weld studs on the pan so that nothing would show.



Next I fabbed a box that would be used to recess the license plate. Also gave me a chance to play some more with my new tig welder.



I made a template that would allow me to check my progress when forming the curve to the roll pan.



I used my slip roller to form the curve to the pan. I varied the tension on the roller to achieve the irregular curve to the pan. By using the roller I had to make the pan in two pieces since the pan was wider than my slip roll.



After welding the two pan halves together, I measured to cut in the license plate box.



Pan cut out ready to weld in the box.



Checking proper angle to weld the box at.

When I got to this stage, I actually went back and fabbed a second pan. My thinking was that the first pan would probably get too screwed up to be usable. Things don't always go as planned.

Now I had to decide what type of tail lights to use. I'll post more pictures and details later.........

Andrew

Great work, and excellent pictures, well thought out. It gives me an idea how I want to proceed!

low54 wrote:Great work, and excellent pictures, well thought out. It gives me an idea how I want to proceed!

I have to force myself to stop and take pictures. Lately I grab a camera as I head to the shop so its handy when I need it. I hope that all of the posters on this site start including pictures. There's some great ideas floating around out there. Let's see-um!!

Andrew

As I said in an earlier post, I built a second roll pan thinking that the first would probably be scrap. As it turned out the first one, although not perfect, will be usable.

In trying to decide what kind of tail light I wanted in the first roll pan, I looked at trailer lights, (no good) went to salvage yards and found nothing I liked, then finally went to a Kenworth dealership that had a showroom full of custom stuff for big rigs. They had a ton of chrome stuff, all kinds of lights, and lots of stuff I didn't even know was available for these trucks. Anyway I found a variety of lights and decided on some glass bullet shaped lenses with stainless bezels.



Since I wanted a tunneled look with these lights, I rolled 4 tubes and welded in a base on each. I wasn't sure how deep I wanted the lights to sit, so I made the tubes deeper than I thought they needed to be.




After doing the layout on the roll pan, I grabbed my trusty old drill with the correct size hole saw and cut the four holes for the tubes.




Slipped the tubes in the holes. Looked ok but I wanted to see it outside the garage.




With the truck outside I get a better idea of how it will look. Sometimes I kind of lose perspective of how something is going to look when I'm confined in the garage.



After I got all the tubes lined up, I welded them up. I left part of each tube sticking out since I might want to form a lip around each opening instead of grinding them off flush. I made the socket bases for the lights so that I could adjust how deep they will sit in each tunnel. In this photo I have one of the lights installed. Sorry I never made a photo at this stage with all four lights installed.



Of course I had to throw a little power to it and see how it would look lit up.





I have some refraction film that I'm going to apply to the socket base to brighten them up some more. I may look into using led lights.

Now all I have to do is a lot of grinding, some plastic filler, a lot of sanding, and priming, and sanding, and priming.............Have I mentioned by any chance...That I HATE GRINDING AND SANDING!!!!!! I know that it's necessary and a great paint job depends on it, but I still hate it.

Now all I got to do is figure out what I'm going to do with the other roll pan... I threw the question out on the FTE forum for suggestions, but never got anything that really tripped my trigger. I may just cut slits in it and mount leds on the backside.

I'll update later...........

Andrew

[size=18][size=12]i have to say, im definetely digging the semi tail light solution, but here was my 50 dollar auto zone solution on my ranger i did:
i just shaved my old tail lights , cut a slot in the bottom of my tail gate and welded in a sleeve that fit, then i screwed the tail light strips into place and wired them up.

Well I'll be damned!!!!! I posted this thread about 6 months ago and low54 responded and it was dead silence until now. Thanks for the response sinndustrial.

Tell me about the lights you used. Are they for running lights and brake/turn? They look sort of like the led lights that were called Line of Fire, that were marketed to go under the tail gate area as additional lighting. I considered those for my second roll pan, but as of now I haven't made a decision on the type of light to use.

Please excuse my initial response, but when you spend a lot of time posting pictures and info on a fabrication project, you generally expect response, either negative or positive and I'm open to either.

Andrew

Hey Andrew

Thanks for the build up text and photos of the rear roll pan +. Really cool looking work your doing. I wish I were as painstaking in my fab layout work as you. I've got a rolled pan on my 48IH that I made. And its fine but I did a funky job compared to your pro work. I'm gonna have to try harder. I appreciate your recording all. The next guy will have it easy when he starts out with your plan etc. I didn't see it until now. I guess I just wasn't looking. There are a lot of different sections at this site, and that's a good thing I just have to remember to look around.

Good luck Tom

hey lowlid, Your tail lights turned out really great!...I've been out of the loop for quite a awhile...My project is at a stand still for now but, I'll check in from time to time...again your project is lookin great

Great idea,looking at big truck parts, I used trailer lights on a '57 chevy pickup I built a few tears back, but something like you found would have been much better!!