(bell rings)
- This is my oil pan and it holds all my oil.
This is a rock from the desert
and there's a lot of rocks in the desert,
and they all want to make my oil come out of my oil pan.
So today we got to make some protection
to protect my oil pan from these rocks.
We're gonna make a skid plate.
I can't wait.
(upbeat music)
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Now let me get back to the pit.
In case you haven't been paying attention.
We recently bought this one stock BMW E36,
and we've been modifying it to be a fun
rally-inspired car that we can rip off road.
Now sure you can drive a stock car off road to some success,
but we want this car to be better than that.
We want it to be more reliable than that,
and we want it to look cooler than that.
So we've been testing out a bunch of rally inspired
modifications over the past few months and finding out
whether or not they're worth all the time,
money, and effort that they take to install.
And that's what we're doing today with a DIY skid plate.
All right.
So you might not think of a skid plate when you think of
really cool mods to do to a car.
But this, like I said,
is supposed to be driven off road and off road,
there are a lot of rocks,
especially where we're going and those rocks
can get kicked up and smash our undersides.
And some of our undersides are pretty important
and pretty vital.
So I want to make sure they're protected.
So today we are going to build some skid plates
to protect the engine and its oil pan.
And I want to protect the gas tank because I don't really
want that stuff spewing out either, that could blow me up.
So today we're going to use some aluminum and we're going to
make a nice burly skid plate for the whole front,
basically, including the engine.
And I've got some really dense plastic kind of stuff
called UHMW that I'm gonna use for the gas tank.
There's going to be a lot of manual labor here,
a lot of holding heavy stuff up
and tracing things and making templates, a lot of work.
So I thought it'd be nice to have an extra set of hands.
So I brought a friend along, that's Anthony.
- Hello?
- So the first thing we're going to need to do is
figure out how we're going to attach this thing to the car.
We're probably going to have to build some standoffs.
There's probably gonna be some welding,
some cutting involved.
And we're also going to have to make a template and trace
the shape that we want to make this,
probably out of cardboard
so that we can cut it out of this.
- This'll be easy. They do it all the time.
- Yeah, they do it all the time.
- [Cameraman] They? - Yeah.
- This is a four foot by four foot sheet of aluminum.
It's three sixteenths inches thick
and it costs about $265, which is pretty expensive.
That's about how much an aftermarket skid plate goes for.
Problem I have with aftermarket skid plates is that a lot of
them don't really protect the oil pan that well.
So I figured we'd buy a big sheet
that's a little bit bigger than we need
and make one to suit our needs.
- And there's really nothing on the market for gas tanks,
our quarter-inch UHMW cost about $175.
You know, it's cheaper than a whole gas tank.
- And so we spent a grand total of about $450.
Now there's going to be some elbow grease involved.
I don't know what that's worth.
- It's not cheap. I can tell you that.
- The grease? - The grease.
- Cardboard, the most handiest fabrication tool of all,
we're going to cut a skid plate out of cardboard.
It's a lot easier than taking a first crack at it
out of aluminum.
We'd probably end up wasting all that money we spent.
So we'll make it out of cardboard.
Then we'll make it out of aluminum.
It's going to go around the front here kind of wide,
and then it'll get a little skinnier and come back inside
of the control arms, protect the oil pan,
and then it can stop just past the oil pan
as far as I'm concerned.
(upbeat music)
We're just making a shape.
And then ultimately we have to make it again
out of metal, as I make it, you know,
I'm kind of erring on the side of too big and we can always
cut a little bit more off and just kind of honing in on.
All right. So I'm just going to pop some holes.
We're going to put our rivnuts up in this bar,
and I'm just going to put some holes through the cardboard
and make marks in that bar.
That way, as long as we make the aluminum piece
the same as this cardboard piece, our holes will line up.
That's how we'll mount up the rear, three holes across.
I mean, I probably could have like evenly spaced them,
but no thank you.
Not today.
Now we need to do the same thing.
We're going to physically put rivnuts up in the subframe
as well and do a couple of mounting points here and here.
So I've got to get those figured out.
How's that look?
- Oh yeah, we're good.
Send it.
- Should have some nice marks on the sub frame
where we'll make bigger holes to install rivnuts later.
Now we can cut this thing out of the aluminum.
- It's time to cut.
- Look, we got just enough aluminum.
Timber!
All right, now I'm ready to cut this skid plate,
and I'm going to use a jigsaw to do it.
I've got a metal blade on here,
and I think this is going to be basically the most efficient
way to get through this quickly and I'll be able to
manipulate it pretty well to make the shape that we want.
(upbeat music)
All right.
So one of the problems with cutting aluminum
is that a gums stuff up, it's kind of soft.
And so if you're using a band saw or a cutoff wheel
or a jigsaw that we're using,
you'll often run into aluminum gumming your thing up.
And as you can see, we've got this here.
We've made it about three inches and then the teeth
are filled with aluminum.
It doesn't come out, the blade quits cutting,
and it kind of sucks.
- The slow blade speed and a slow feed speed
managed to make that last blade last a lot longer.
She's done.
- I'm going to make a knife out of that.
- [Cameraman] You look like a Final Fantasy character.
- That looks like a skid plate.
- Yes, right here we do have,
in theory, the skid plate.
- So now that we've got the shape cut out on and put the
template back on here and we're going to go ahead and make
the holes that we marked out earlier.
So we'll put holes in the skid plate,
then we'll put rivnuts in the car and we should be able
to mount this thing up as we tested it.
(upbeat music)
All our holes are really close,
but they don't quite line up by like very small amounts.
So I'm just gonna make these holes a little bit bigger
than the skid plate, give us a little more wiggle room.
- We kind of did it.
- We definitely totally did it.
- It's up and I'm not holding it.
- I mean, that's a skid plate.
We need to attach it a little bit more.
But that is a skid plate.
So we need to make a brace to mount
the front of the skid plate to.
So basically all I'm going to do is make a little foot pad
that goes up here and then we'll weld a tube to it.
It'll come down here to another foot pad
that'll bolt up to the skid plate.
So I'm just measuring right now.
I think this is what I'm gonna use for the foot pads,
trying to get a size determined.
These foot pads are going to be four inches long.
And they're each gonna have two holes on.
This is going to be one of our braces.
I'm gonna go cut this off. It's just shy of eight inches.
This is basically going to be the brace set up.
It's going to be like this and like that,
pretty simple, not too pretty, not too fancy,
but it is going to work.
So I'm going to put the skid plate back up now
and make sure that this length is right,
that I don't need to shorten this or hopefully not
add anything to it.
They fit pretty nicely now,
I've got them shaped up just right.
We'll go get started on that gas tank protection.
So the gas tank is on kind of both sides of the car here.
So we're gonna need to make two little panels,
one over here and one over here.
You know what it is?
Template time.
So kind of cut in some sort of shape like this
and make a hole here, mount it there.
Then, once the welder's back up and running,
I'll weld a little plate from here, like a little rectangle,
it hangs over that this will kind of slip into
and that we can put holes in and fasten it to.
I think that'll work just fine.
I think we're going to cut these out
with that jigsaw again, but nothing to use.
Last time I get to do this.
Texas.
Texas 2.0, clean the fur off this thing,
and then look at putting them up.
(upbeat jazzy music)
It is time to finish these skid plates up.
I'm going to take this skid plate off
and weld up our braces,
put some holes in here to mount it to the front bumper.
And then this will be done.
Damn.
(upbeat music)
Well there's a little bit of splattery but that makes sense
cause we kind of have a hodgepodge
of parts holding the tip together.
But for this project, that'll be just fine.
That'll be strong enough.
So now I need to,
I forgot I need to make these holes a touch bigger
for the hardware that's going to go through them
and then we can add the holes to the skid plate,
put it back up and look at our work,
and marvel at its glory.
All right. We're out in the paint booth now.
I'm going to give these a quick hit of Krylon
Colormax paint and primer in flat black,
just to keep these things from rusting.
That is pretty much a skid plate.
Now I want to put some hardware through the front
of the plate and the bottom of the bumper right here.
I already made a couple holes.
Put some more hardware through it.
And then the front's done done.
Solid. Solid.
(upbeat music)
Let's see if we're going to have to trim this thing anymore.
Or if it just fits.
Now if you take a peek,
skid plate does line up pretty well with the fender well
or the fender liner.
So that gives me hope that we're going to be okay.
Well it works at full droop.
Oh yeah, it works.
And the higher it goes, the better it works.
So as long as the other side is good as this,
we're looking all right here,
I will say the only thing that I really don't like about
this skid plate that we just made is this exposed hardware.
You know,
if I bash one of these on a rock
and just shear the head off,
then it's kind of going to be a pain to get out,
but it shouldn't be too bad since all these are connected
by either these braces or rivnuts that I've put in.
So if I do break a bolt off and just drill the whole rivnut
out and insert a new one,
but I think it would be better if we reassess this hardware
so it was hidden.
Or I was thinking about just kind of cutting some chunks of
aluminum out to make little kind of shields
for the hardware.
Maybe if I break a bunch of hardware,
then I'll add hardware guards to the skid plate.
(trumpet music)
(triumphant music)
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then what better way to show it than with a bad-ass
Donut flag, hang it in your garage,
hang it in your bedroom or watch it wave
proudly on your at-home flag pole.
I'd say they're available for only $19.98,
which is so much cheaper than $20.
So get your donut flag right now at donutmedia.com
and let the world know that you believe
that cars are for everybody.
(upbeat music)
- All right, mission accomplished.
We got some skid plates on the front of the E36
and we've got the gas tank covered from damage.
This thing's ready for a beating from underneath.
And so the next thing we need to do is go back to the desert
and test out all our mods and see if they were all worth it.
See if we can beat the last time that I set,
but that's going to be for the next episode.
So thanks for coming to this one. I hope you enjoyed it.
I hope you learned a thing or two, had some fun.
I know I did.
Until next time you can go follow me on Instagram
@zachjobe and follow Donut @donut media.
And I'll see you guys in two weeks.
Goodbye.