The Badlander was in need of a skid plate for the fuel tank. We retained the factory 40+ gallon tank so I sure didn’t want to loose that much fuel on the trail somewhere due to a puncture. Matt from Tread Industries took a look and started welding up some plate. I think it turned out nice.

As you can tell, he formed it around the tank perfectly. It has several different locations where it mounts to the frame. This made it very strong! Between the mounting of the gas tank skid and the rear bumper, the entire rear frame of The Badlander is reinforced.  And thanks to the new FASS Fuel System, we wont have to drop the tank very often.

You can see the front of the 14 Bolt rear axle in the lower part of the pic. So this is the front bracing of the fuel tank. This bracing was welded to the skid plate and bolted to the frame cross-member just over the rear axle.

There you have it, one tough skid! I do believe that the entire weight of The Badlander could sit on the skid without issue.

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While shopping around Home Depot the other day I found some very cost effective overland storage bins. I got wind of these on another site, but didnt think there would be any left. They are manufactured by Best Plastics and only sold through Home Depot. They are called the Strong Box.  It was sure nice that the colors matched The Badlander too! They came in at just under $12 each. I promise you for what they are, they are very durable. I tested them out, loaded them, dropped them from the top of The Badlander, stacked them, strapped them, etc. I even sprayed them with water. Although they ARE NOT waterproof, no water entered during the water test. I am impressed at the amount of space you get for $12. They are 27 gallons of beautiful overland storage capacity. They stack nicely and actually lock into each other. You can even mount them lid to lid and they stack lock. They have 3 slits on each side so you can run straps through and tighten them down. They claim to be able to load up to 750lbs. I did NOT test this, and honestly, I kinda doubt it. I did load one half full with ammo. It was super heavy, and more than you would want to load into during an overland trip. It held together just fine.

This lids have a grid design that really helps with sturdiness. The bottom and walls of the container are designed with similar grids to help strengthen the unit. My only concern, since I wasn’t able to get a hold of the company, is whether they hold up to UV. Mine will be mounted on the roof rack, and I just want to make sure they will hold up over the years to come.

If you are in the market for  cost effective storage containers that would work for overlanding or around the house, these are it!

Here are a few more pics:

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Tread Industries of Longmont, Colorado creates a custom fabricated steel bumper for Ron’s favorite toy – his ultimate overlanding Suburban, The Badlander.

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The roof rack is completed finally. The rack came out nicely. We used one inch tubing and, as usual,Tread Industries started from scratch! I wanted the rack to cover as much roof real estate as possible to optimize my carrying capacity. I also wanted it to carry my hi-lift, ax, shovel, water cans, and of course plenty of lighting. I think youll like what you’ll see!

They first did the frame and implemented the companies new logo in the side plates! Clean look I think. After the outside frame was completed, cross braces for the floor were installed. The floor was solid metal on each end for about 6 inches and expanded metal the rest of it. This helps with weight, but the solid metal helps with rigidity. This puppy was sturdy!

Once the floor was tacked in, we fitted all the light mounts. For the front, youll notice that we bent them and lowered them for better clearance. Tucking them down a little really gives it a clean look!

Next the hi-lift jack mount was installed. I got the 60 inch jack and wanted a super sturdy mount made up for this. As you can tell from the pics below, Tread Industries did a great job on this part as well.

After completing it, the rack was sent off to the powder coater. Installed it onto some previously welded tabs directly to the roll cage and turned strong! We actually tested it on our Baja trip with a total of 700 lbs!!!! Way more than I ever wanted up there! It worked flawless and held up to some serious abuse so far!! Im vary happy with this upgrade!

The rack worked out well on our Baja trip. Here is The Badlander loaded with enough gear for 7 adults and all gear for a week long race.

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Rock Sliders for The Badlander

Once we were done with the Custom Winch Bumper, we start on the Rock Sliders. I first wanted something super stout! I also wanted them tucked up and out of the way(read: NO SHIN KNOCKERS!). Been there, done that!

Because of the sheer weight of The Badlander we decided against round tube. Square tube is much stronger and will be sacrificed on the rocks for this rig! All the mounting brackets were also done in square tube. If you look close(sorry for the lousy pics)you can see we also braced all the mounting brackets. The next decision was to weld or bolt them on. I thought about it for a bit and realized that I will eventually have a exo-cage mounting all this together. So bolting it on made no sense. Welding it on is going to be stronger anyway. So we built three mounting brackets on each side. The driver side ones were kind of a bear. We had to work around the emergency brake cable, so the brackets had to be altered slightly. No big deal, yea right. Why is it always the little, simple things that take the most time. Sheesh. Once all that was done and everything tack welded in place, we removed the sliders for final welding. I came in the next day to a pleasant surprise! The Rock Sliders were mounted and painted! I didnt get any installation pics, but its great having helpful friends. Heres a couple shots of them after mounting:

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The Suburban Grill Guard

Once the Rear Bumper was completed we decided to finish it out with an Exo Cage for ultimate protection. We started from the front by building up the front bumper with some grill protection. As you can tell from the picture, we used the trusty cardboard for this project as well. This time in the form of a stand while we figured out our first piece of tube. Once this part was done we started trying to figure out the actual grill part. We went back and forth as to whether to use flat plate steal of tube. So Matt from Tread Industries cut and bent some tube and modeled it for me. I liked it alot and thought it looked alot better than the flat plate, so thats what we went with. Pics at the end will show finished product! Now onto the Exo Cage!

The Suburban Exo-Cage

We started on the Exo Cage after finishing up the front grill guard. Ill start explaining it from front to back. Tube was laid out and outlined the body lines fairly well. We used 120 wall DOM, 1 3/4 tube. We kept the tube about an inch and a half to two inches away from the body to prevent rubbing during extreme body flex. As you can tell from the picture the tube ties into the front grill gaurd and goes down and ties into the Rock Sliders.

We have one piece that mounts from the front of the slider and goes up and runs the roof line. From that piece we have another piece of tube that mounts from the rear of the Rock Sliders and goes up to tie into that roofline tube. Youll notice this tube goes straight up and down. We tried to get it to angle foward with the flow of the window. But by putting a bend there, it stuck out too far and looking at it from the front made the suburban look like it had “ears”.LOL!
For the quarter panel we were able to bend it around and tie it into the lower quarter panel protection. This turned out very slick im my humble opinion. By doing this we were able to avoid tying into the rear bumper. This also helps it to flex properly. Later we will add quarter plates that will cover the quarter panels better.

For the roof, we had a total of four cross braces. That should be more than enough, but just to make sure we added an “x”. This should really keep it strong on top. We will be adding a roof rack at a later date to this structure. Offroad Lights will be added to the furthest foward cross support as well.

I had to get it outside! After being in the shop for nearly a month, I took outside for a short stroll. Heres a pic of what it looks like so far. It not complete yet, but will be shortly and Ill keep this page updated!

UPDATE:

Here is how the Exo Cage looks today with roof rack mounted and rear quarter panels on!

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Its time to add more armor to The Badlander! How about a  Rear Bumper! Even better, how about a Double Swingout Bumper! I wanted a complete package in the rear that had everything I wanted! Holding a spare tire, set of fuel cans, hi-lift, and a set of drop down tables. I wanted it all! Because The Badlander came with a drop down tailgate, I wanted double swing outs! This also distributes the weight, of all the gear, to TWO spindles! Plus by adding a drop table to each swing I could double my real estate with the tailgate dropped! Now thats what Im talking about! We had lots of cool ideas and plans, including a built in skid plate and quarter panel protection! So read on and see how the project went!

The most important thing we needed to start with was a good spindle. My buddy, Matt from Tread Industries, supplied a set of 1 3/4 inch spindles. That should be more than enough for what we needed. Especially since we are doing a double swing out. By doing this and distributing the weight, we should have NO sag issues. Just to make sure, I think we will add a support in the middle to take off any load from the spindle that we can.

Getting Started:

As usual the first thing we did is whip out the cardboard and start playing. We took several measurements. This was going to be alot bigger project than the front bumper, due to the swingouts, as well as the wrap around. We started working on the back bumper. One of my pet peeves is I didnt want the back bumper to be too different than the Front Winch Bumper. I wanted it to flow. I think it looks a little foolish having totally different looking bumpers on each end. So we really consentrated on making sure the back bumper resembled the lines of the front one. Just like the front, we gave it a good angle for exiting the rocks or other obsticles. It was built using the same materials as the front. This picture to the right shows the big 1.75 inch spindles used and how it flows thru the bumper and extends down. This will make it very strong and beefier than many other designs I have seen. You can also see that we tappered the rear bumper so that the later fuel tank skid plate would flow smoothly up to the bumper as well as making a good departure angle from trail obsticles.

We also built the 2 inch reciever into the bumper so we didnt have to have any low hanging objects. Here you can also see that the two swing outs were added. We decided to have them overlap and use one latch to close both. This gives it a cleaner look I think. Plus it makes it easier to deal with for the wife. One latch opens the whole setup and gives here acces to the tailgate. You can also see in the picture to the left that we carried the same design for the recovery points, as the front bumper. They are 3/8 inch thick and arent going anywhere. Because the weight of both swingouts were going to be in one place, Matt decided to add a support, welded to the bumper. This support would have both swing outs resting on it in the middle of the bumper. So when you close the swingouts, they rest on it. Works out very slick and reduces any chance for movement when closed. The double swingouts were added and recessed to assure that they were as close to the body as possible without having any interferance. The spare tire would be mounted on the left swing and the gas cans would be mounted to the right. Honestly in hindsite these should have been switched. Since the fuel door is on the drivers side, having the spare fuel on that side would make easier refills. We ordered our fuel can carriers from Adventure Trailer. These were then welded together and mounted on the swingout with a support loop under them. The spare tire holder turned out great. It has support tube going from the tire mount directly to the spindle for added strength. You can shake it back and forth and get NO movement. Heres a few pics to show the swingouts:

A quick note: I also forgot to mentioned that Matt added these cool spring loaded pins. They are stainless steel and lock the swingouts open so you dont have them swinging open into traffic or fighting them on a hill. We add two positions, one to clear opening the tailgate and the other goes out 90 degrees for a table setup to later be added.

Because Im dealing with such a large vehicle, I want lower quarter panel protection. After taking all the measurements, it was decided that we would actually cut the lower quarters and add a wrap around piece. But because of flex and a future EXO-cage project, we decided to seperate the rear bumper from the lower quarter protection. With the 3 inch body lift we completed earlier, we were able to have alot of working room above the gas tank. So we ran cross bracing above the frame from one side to another. Then we cut the lower quarter panels out completely and replaced it with 3/16 plate in kind of a triangle form. Once welded to the cross braces, this became solid as a rock! This would also be the foundation for the rear section of the Exo-Cage! You can actually jack the whole suburban up on these rear quarters and they wont budge! Bring it rocks! Lets see what you got! Below are a few more pics if you guys need ideas or anything.

Update:

Here is how it looks today, completed with all the gear attached.

ColoradoRon

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I decided that a winch bumper should be the first piece of body armor for our suburban. Before building a bumper, you must first decide on a winch.A Warn M15000 was chosen for pull duties up front. That should be more than enough to pull the The Badlander out of any jam I seem to get us in. I didnt want the same incident that happened on our Southeast Colorado Expedition.

I first removed front bumper and front hitch that was mounted under factory bumper. I then removed the plastic skid plate. We used 3/8″ plate for the winch cradle. Trying to keep my approach angle from going by the wayside was not easy! The Warn M15000 was sucking up all the room like a stingy big brother. We did manage to get it to fit up under the grill without having to chop any of it out. That was nice, as I really didnt want to have it look like a hack job. Having just added a 3″ bodylift really helped with this part. The craddle was able to mount directly to the frame, so that all leverage from winch pulling comes directly from the frame. This is crucial! I have seen this done wrong alot! You want the winch mount as close to between the frame horns as possible. Not above or below, as it acts like a lever on your frame! Anyway, if you look closely at the pics you can see we added shackle mounting points. We actually added another 3/8″ plate to that spot to make the mounts solid as a rock!

Next we (When I say we, I mean my buddy Matt) started making templates for the rest of the bumper. We used cardboard and layed it together to get the initial idea for the design. Once that was done we traced them on our flat stock and grabbed the very handy dandy plasma cutter to cut them out. All you do is just flip the same piece over and cut the other side. That way it “should” all come out and match up(crossed fingers at this time). It actually all came out good. Matts great, no need to recut anything. Anyway, once the pieces for the top were cut we tack welded them into place. We then took a 3″ piece of flat and built the front pieces. Heated and bent into place, it was time to decide on how much approach angle I was willing to give up. NOT MUCH! I was bound and determined to loose very little! We laid the bottom plate at a good angle to retain approach. We also tappered the bumper as it came outward, so there was very little bumper in front of the tires. Honestly, with the size of that Warn Winch, I didnt think we had a prayer in retaining in approach angle. Thank goodness Im not a very smart man. We we able to save alot of approach. With all the pieces tacked into place, we removed bumper for final assembly.

I almost went against my better judgement, and had the bumper Powder Coated. I dont recommend doing that. Any piece of body armor that is going to get scratched, I recommend shake and shooting it. Much easier to touch up later. So it recieved the “shake and shoot” Colorado Ron special. I use and industrial black paint thats really strong. Only problem is that it takes forever, and a day, to dry. If you barely touch it while its drying, you actually will leave a perfect imprint–its that soft! Dont touch it! It sucks! Ask me how I know. Once thats completed, and it dries, it becomes very hard and works well.

Before installing the bumper onto the truck, the warn winch had to be installed. Once that was mounted, we mounted the bumper. It fit like a glove! I must admit I was surprised! Just kidding Matt! Great job! Bolted it right into place and it turned out good I think. We kept the approach angle decent, while mounting one of the larger warn winchs. Next project for it will be to cut and fab some custom recessed lights!

UPDATE:
And here is how it looks today after the powder coating and recessed lighting was installed:

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