Rocker guards are a great addition to any 4x4. Whether your off-roader is lifted or stock, there is always the potential for banging door and rocker panels with rocks and other things that will leave you wishing for some body armor. There are a lot of vehicles out there that have no bolt-on rocker guard applications, and if you're a lucky owner of one of these unsupported vehicles, then you're going to be looking into building some custom protection. If you know how to weld and own a tubing bender, then you can make your own at home, but if you're like the great majority of us without a welder in the garage, you'll need to find yourself a good local welder and fabber. We turned to Gentry Welding in San Luis Obispo, California, to help us build a set of clean guards that would not only protect the body, but also give us a step up into our ride. 1.Gentry Welding started with some angle iron to make some weld-on mounts to fit the frame of our truck. Our particular guinea pig is a Durango that has very little aftermarket support, but still offers a good platform for an off-roader. The angle iron was cut into smaller pieces that will fit to the frame at three points per side.1.Gentry Welding started with some angle iron to make some weld-on mounts to fit the frame 2. The inside corner of the angle iron is rounded, and by some stroke of luck fit perfectly on the rounded corner of our Dodge Durango's frame. When you are choosing a location to mount your rocker guards on your frame, make sure there are no fuel pumps or anything else near it that you could possibly damage when you weld or bolt them to your frame. The frame on our Durango is completely boxed, and we decided it was easier to weld our rocker guards to the frame instead of bolting them.2. The inside corner of the angle iron is rounded, and by some stroke of luck fit perfectl 3. Chris Gentry used some 1.5-inch, 0.120 wall tubing to build the guard supports with. If you don't have a tubing notcher, you can use a grinder to notch the tubes to meet each other.3. Chris Gentry used some 1.5-inch, 0.120 wall tubing to build the guard supports with. If 4. After measuring a tube length for the rocker guard, Gentry cut a piece and fitted it up in place. We've done no bending and only welding and cutting up to this point, so if you're only looking for rocker protection, you could do the entire job with a MIG welder and some way to cut the tubing. Since we also want a step and some parking lot protection from adjacent car doors, we're adding a bent hoop to the guard.4. After measuring a tube length for the rocker guard, Gentry cut a piece and fitted it up 5. We used jackstands to hold the tubes in place while welding them on. Small adjustments were made by shoving scrap metal under the tubes to parallel the guards with the body lines.5. We used jackstands to hold the tubes in place while welding them on. Small adjustments 6. With the main body of the rocker guards on the vehicle, Gentry started making the hoops, taking care to measure the tube and account for the bends we've specified. This is the only part of the guards that will require a tubing bender.6. With the main body of the rocker guards on the vehicle, Gentry started making the hoops 7. We decided to put a 7-degree tilt on the steps. This gave a little sleeker look to the guards and kept them a tad higher and out of the way of objects. We made sure to keep a healthy distance of a couple inches in between the guards and the bottom of the doors.7. We decided to put a 7-degree tilt on the steps. This gave a little sleeker look to the 8. Since the guards are custom made, we could use any size tubing with any wall thickness we wanted. Thinner-walled tubes weigh less but they are not as strong. Since this wasn't a fullsize truck (where we would've used 1.75-inch tube), we felt comfortable with a mix of 1.5-inch, 0.120 wall tubing for the supports and 1.5-inch, 0.095 wall tubing for the guard tubes. We used the lighter tubing to keep weight down and felt comfortable doing so since this isn't a rockcrawler and doesn't need the most hardcore protection.8. Since the guards are custom made, we could use any size tubing with any wall thickness 9. Gentry measured and cut five small 1-inch reinforcement tubes to go in between the main guard and the rocker hoop.9. Gentry measured and cut five small 1-inch reinforcement tubes to go in between the main 10. Gentry welded the tubes into place, five on each rocker guard. They not only give strength and rigidity to the guards, they also give a little style to boot. He also TIG-welded caps on the end of each rocker guard to complete the job.10. Gentry welded the tubes into place, five on each rocker guard. They not only give stre 11. Once all the welds were complete, both rocker guards were taken to May's Powder Coating to get a textured black coating that will look good for years and protect the metal from corrosion.11. Once all the welds were complete, both rocker guards were taken to May's Powder Coatin Sources May's Powdercoating n/a 805-458-5513 Gentry Welding n/a 805-544-4130 By Jerrod Jones Enjoyed this Post? Subscribe to our RSS Feed, or use your favorite social media to recommend us to friends and colleagues!
