jon f mn
Well-known Member
Picked up a new pipe bender so decided to build myself some running boards for my pickup. I talked about this last week on tractor talk, thinking I needed 2 steps for my wife to get in sonce my truck is very high. After some trial and error we decided that I only need one step, but it had to be lower than commercial units that I've seen. Besides, buildong is more fun. Lol.
My orginal plan was to bend a 90° on the ends of 2-1 1/2" aluminum pipes, but the first problem was that the pipes broke rather than bend. I've bent this pipe before with no problems, but this time it didn't work.
So I went to plan B, which was to use some of my older pipe that I knew would bend. The trouble was that I only had a little of that, so I cut short pieces and bent them and would fill in with the new pipe for the straits.
Next problem was that with 90° bends the boards would be too wide, so I decided to cut them down to get the width I wanted. This left a point on the ends, but I think it looks ok.
Then cut the ends to length.
Then attatched the ends to the sides.
Next was to put in the filler. I considered expa ded metal, both flattened and not flattened, but decided on 3/8" square instead. I was goind to twist them, but my favorite youngest son Nick talked me out of that. Welded 3 lengths lengthwise and some crosses to hold them.
Positioned it to measure for the mounts.
Decided to mount directly to the truck frame. In the end that turned out to be not such a good idea, but I'll get to that later. I decided to mount to a single spot on the frame since frame twist could tear apart a welded tube frame. I used 2" pipe for the mounts, surprisingly they bent fine. Don't know why the 1 1/2" pipe wouldn't. So I bent up 2 s shaped legs.
My orginal plan was to bend a 90° on the ends of 2-1 1/2" aluminum pipes, but the first problem was that the pipes broke rather than bend. I've bent this pipe before with no problems, but this time it didn't work.
So I went to plan B, which was to use some of my older pipe that I knew would bend. The trouble was that I only had a little of that, so I cut short pieces and bent them and would fill in with the new pipe for the straits.
Next problem was that with 90° bends the boards would be too wide, so I decided to cut them down to get the width I wanted. This left a point on the ends, but I think it looks ok.
Then cut the ends to length.
Then attatched the ends to the sides.
Next was to put in the filler. I considered expa ded metal, both flattened and not flattened, but decided on 3/8" square instead. I was goind to twist them, but my favorite youngest son Nick talked me out of that. Welded 3 lengths lengthwise and some crosses to hold them.
Positioned it to measure for the mounts.
Decided to mount directly to the truck frame. In the end that turned out to be not such a good idea, but I'll get to that later. I decided to mount to a single spot on the frame since frame twist could tear apart a welded tube frame. I used 2" pipe for the mounts, surprisingly they bent fine. Don't know why the 1 1/2" pipe wouldn't. So I bent up 2 s shaped legs.