It's called "enabling"...
Was scrolling down and about to tag Tredsdert, but you are all over it!
1. I actually think this is pretty cool
2. It made me think of you, @Tredsdert (because it's cool, unexpected, and a bit off the wall)
?I'm not sure how long this will last, mind you it is only acrylic.
The bowing out of a plastic is actually a happy accident. The purpose of these vents on the tailgate of the Wrangler is decompression. As you close the doors, it gives the air somewhere to go. Otherwise you might just pop out your front window.
Initially those rubber stoppers on the inside of the screw were intended to be spacers. But second it started bowing out, I decided to just tighten it down all the way.
I cleaned and put a ceramic wax on the portion of the tailgate that is covered by the plastic, and then I also cleaned and put the same ceramic wax over the acrylic sheet as well. I don't expect it to stay clean for very long especially with how I drive, but I'm hoping that it helps a little bit, if only for a week or two.
I will probably put some lighting on there at some point in the near future. You know how these things will glow if you put a little bit of light on them.
NO........! IT CAN'T BE?
Step one of a multi-step process here is done. Got the holes drilled. Sunday I will get underneath the Wrangler and drill the holes for the Dixie horn plate to mount underneath this. I should have the truck bed liner coming in this Sunday from Amazon, and then I will be cleaning and painting this aluminum. From there I need to get some form of weather stripping to put underneath the aluminum sheet here. And then I will reinstall it and screw the Dixie horn plate to the bottom as well. I'm probably going to wait a couple weeks to wire the Dixie Horn back into Aux-1. The final step will be putting the horse stall mat back in place. Though I'm going to have to purchase a couple longer screws for that to work.
Though I've been driving around this afternoon with the back window off, you can definitely tell a lot less noise coming up from the road. Who've thunk!
This whole process here is probably going to take 2 weeks to finish without wiring the Dixie horn. I'm not quite sure yet what I'm going to use for weather stripping that will provide more of a waterproof type seal, and also still be something that I can remove if I need to. Once it's complete and everything's painted and the horse stall mat has been reinstalled, I don't plan on removing this aluminum sheet anytime soon. The eventual goal will be to replace the horse stall mat with a goose gear cargo piece. But that probably won't happen until next year at the earliest.
Busy weekend...
Before I can successfully wire up the Dixie Horn I needed to paint side A and side B of this aluminum plate in the trunk space which the Dixie Horn mounts to. I have side A completed and drying for the next 6 hours in the garage, I'll paint side B this afternoon.
The tailgate area had a fair amount of exposed metal as well from cutting off the tub, so I decided to coat that as well. It should also aid in sound deadening a lot of the rattling that will go on underneath the horse stall mat when that gets reinstalled.
My beautiful messed up hood is not so beautiful anymore, but is definitely more messed up than before.
In an attempt to seal the exposed metal I kind of made a mouth out of the hood.
The hood's getting replaced next year anyways, so either next weekend or the weekend after I'm going to take off the hood completely from the Wrangler and spray the whole thing topside at least, truck bed liner black. I think it'll look pretty cool.
Derrr wtf happened to your hood? That’s not from hail, right?Busy weekend...
Before I can successfully wire up the Dixie Horn I needed to paint side A and side B of this aluminum plate in the trunk space which the Dixie Horn mounts to. I have side A completed and drying for the next 6 hours in the garage, I'll paint side B this afternoon.
The tailgate area had a fair amount of exposed metal as well from cutting off the tub, so I decided to coat that as well. It should also aid in sound deadening a lot of the rattling that will go on underneath the horse stall mat when that gets reinstalled.
My beautiful messed up hood is not so beautiful anymore, but is definitely more messed up than before.
In an attempt to seal the exposed metal I kind of made a mouth out of the hood.
The hood's getting replaced next year anyways, so either next weekend or the weekend after I'm going to take off the hood completely from the Wrangler and spray the whole thing topside at least, truck bed liner black. I think it'll look pretty cool.
Guys, this is obviously Sacha Baron Cohen doing a comedy bit.
Oh yes! That's looking better. ?3rd and final coating is done. Now let it sit overnight and through tomorrow. Means I'll be driving around tomorrow like a Blue Ridge Mountain Redneck.????
Ended up plugging up the bigger hole with a screw with a nut and two larger washers on either side of the aluminum hood. And then I put truck bed liner on the top side of that bolt only. The side with the normal size intended hole, I just put a piece of electrical tape on the underside and sprayed truck bed liner on both sides of that hole.
Lean into it.
