After sustaining significant damage to the rear corners after climbing Tellico's Helicopter Pad, I decided to beef my Jeep to make it a little more rockproof. I wanted better protection than was offered from those cheap aluminum diamond plate covers, and came across steel corners from Off Your Rocker (650-726-3008). Based out of Half Moon Bay, California, Off Your Rocker is a small one-man operation whose custom 10 gauge steel corner panel and rocker panel guards have been the rage for serious rockhounds. Standard offerings are diamond plate units that come powdercoated, but you can also get smooth panels with custom cutouts for your Jeep. These have become especially popular after they were seen on Jeff "SuperRookie" Wagonner's championship rockcrawling CJ7. I ordered a pair of bare metal smooth units that I planned to paint white to give a clean, smooth look. To further this, I planned to replace the stock taillights with 4" recessed composite LED units, and to smoothly mount the license plate. After talking to Dan Duffy, the owner of Off Your Rocker, he agreed to cut 4 1/2 inch holes at the stock light locations for me.
The guards arrived a week later. They were clean, heavy, and really thick! The rounded corners were smoothly bent and all the cutouts for the tailgate hinges, fuel filler, and lights were clean and free of burrs. I prepped the metal by first roughing the surface with 200 grit sandpaper before spraying on white automotive sandable primer from a spraycan. After a couple of light coats, I wet sanded the primer with 600 grit wet-dry sandpaper before applying several more thick coats. After wet sanding again I applied white lacquer paint in similar fashion from a rattlecan. After sanding again, three coats of clearcoat were applied. Although the paint wasn't a perfect match with the rest of the Jeep, I chose a color (Pepboys "Sport Utility and Truck Basecoat White") that could be easily touched up. The finished product looks great!
Before I started I took a couple of pictures of the rear corners for comparison:
Start by removing the flares. It help to do this on a warm day, since the plastic inner fender liner is quite stiff. I kept the edge weighed down with a big ViceGrip to ease access to the backing nuts. After a while it was apparent that the entire liner can be popped off if you carefully pried at the snap connectors. Next, the taillights were removed. Be sure to take note that the light purple-colored wire is for the backup lights. Since I already had an auxiliary rearmounted flood light for this purpose, I taped this wire off. The remaining wires were pushed into the hole.
Next the finished corner panel was carefully lined up and clamped into place. Spend some time deciding how you want the panel to line up, especially if you have a tweaked body that prevents the panel from smoothly lining up. I chose to make the top edge of the panel line up with the bottom of the mounting rail for the soft top. The panel comes with two holes predrilled into the bend of the panel to assist in preliminary positioning. Enough stainless steel hardware is supplied to allow 15 bolts per panel. You need to decide where to drill the remaining holes with a 1/4" bit. Be sure that the hole locations are in areas that you can reach from the inside to screw the nuts onto the bolt threads. I found it best to immediately place a nut and bolt through each hole as it was drilled, as this prevents the panel from shifting and also draws it tight against the body. Mark the locations of any flare attachment points onto the inside surface of the panel using a carbide scribe. You cannot do this for the one or two holes that use expansion bolts in the body. I solved this by loosely remounting the flare, then marking these holes onto the outside of the panel using the holes in the flare. Finally, outline the taillight cutout onto the body.
Now remove the hardware and the panel, and drill the remaining holes into the panel. I used a jigsaw to cut out the taillight hole. Deburr all the holes and spray them with some rust-preventive stuff. After that dries, place a dollop of silicone caulking into each hole, and into the seam at the rear of the body. Apply a couple of good coats of wax on the paint - it'll be your last opportunity! Alternatively, you could coat the original finish with Herculiner for additional protection.
Now reinstall the panel and all the hardware. It isn't necessary to really torque on the nuts, just get them snug. Seal the edges with more silicone caulk. Reinstall the flares and the fender liner.
For the taillight conversion, I used parts from Grote - a well known supplier of lighting equipment to semitrailer trucks. I chose a pop-in grommet mount for the taillight that relies on the grommet design and the pressure of the light to keep things in place. The grommet (P.N. 91740) snapped into place. I used a 11" long 3-wire plug-in pigtail with a female connector (P.N. 67002) that is moisture and corrosion proof. The white lead was connected to ground, the black to the original black lead, and the red to the remaining lead. All the connections were soldered and covered with shrink-warp tubing. Finally a sealed SuperNova LED stop/tail/turn light (P.N. 53212) was attached and snapped into the grommet.
Here's a comparo of the completed passenger side versus the stock drivers side. Compared to stock, the Grote lights are super bright and cycle on and off crisply (0.00006 mSec versus 250 mSec, according to Grote). It makes the stock light unit look sloppy and dim.
For the license plate I used a pair of DEI's Lite'n Boltz (from Summit Racing) that are license plate mounting bolts with integrated lights. The plate needed a slight bit of trimming to fit without interfering with the tailgate, and the leads from the bolts were spliced into the wiring for the taillight. The license plate is now smoothly mounted against the body, and is still street legal.
The finished project looks and works great, and should help fend off rocks without problem.