1946 Ford Roadster Pickup - You're Barred

With the sections clamped to a metal bench, I TIG-welded the ends. Note the spacer to raise the ring to the center of the tubing. I MIG-welded the rings from behind, as well as welding shut the joint where the rings are rolled but not welded.

To mount the nerf bar to the truck I bent up another couple of bends, and with a couple of the brackets shown earlier welded to them, they bolt to the old rear pickup bed mounts, which aren't used on my truck. These are slotted, so allow plenty of adjustment. With the fabrication complete, I welded everything up and filed the ends of the nerf bar to shape.

When welding two tubes together, it's preferable, and essential if it's something like a rollcage, to have as tight a joint as possible, which means shaping the end of the tubing to be welded. Sure this can be done with a grinder and a file, but this Tubing Notcher from Eastwood makes the job so much simpler, and uses easily sourced hole cutters in a drill. It's also especially useful if the tube is to be welded at an angle other than 90 degrees, as you'll appreciate if you've ever tried to do this by hand!

The Notcher uses regular hole saws, which should be the same diameter as the tubing.

Here's the finished joint between the nerf bar and the section of tubing that serves as its mount, ready to be welded.

A trial fitment finally showed what it looked like on the truck. I opted to add the second pair of rings to semi-hide the mounts, plus I'll run the tailpipes through them at a later date. However, I had planned to form a frame around the license plate, but hadn't realized quite how large the bend radius was. Instead I modified the lower bar to drop down under the license plate, rather than mount the plate to the outside of the nerf bar.

A couple of lengths of 1/2x1/4-inch steel bar were bent with nothing more glamorous than a vice and hammer, then drilled and tapped to mount the license plate.

With the nerf bar removed, I formed a dropped centersection and welded it into the center of the lower tube. These S-bends can't be formed in the bender so I made a U-bend with a 12-inch straight section at the bottom, cut the bends in half, flipped one side over, and welded them back together.

Voilá, the new-and-improved nerf bar. I was very pleased, until exiting a gas station on my way home, I caught the center, bending the nerf bar up and backward, ripping the wiring out of the left light. Looks like I may have to move it out and up under the tailgate if I want to keep it.