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After a month or two of hauling loads without any protection for the smoker stacks, it became necessary to cover them up. While I didn’t melt anything important or catch anything on fire, the risk was there. And…. I planned on adding an auxilary fuel tank into the bed later, which of course didn’t need to have extra heating from the smokestacks.
Sketch for RFQ
I knew what I wanted – diamond plate with louvers at the top to vent the heat. The louvers had to face the rear of the truck. So I sketched out what I wanted and started to fax sheetmetal shops with an RFQ (request for quote).
Second page of RFQ Sketch
The cheapest quote: $300
for diamond plate aluminum, no louvers (from a HVAC sheetmetal shop)
The most expensive quote: $1,100 !!!
for diamond plate aluminum with louvers just like my sketch (from a high precision machine shop with extensive sheetmetal capabilities).
This was simply too much to pay for a heat shield on my truck. Sure, if it was a show truck, maybe, but not a daily driver with over 300k miles on it.
I didn’t immediately know how to get it much cheaper.
Then, I was tripping over some leftover sheetmetal siding in my dirt lot (they were from some horse stalls that got taken down). This could work!
Marked the cuts with a sharpie first. Cut the first piece down to the width of the pickup bed. Cutting was done using good quality aviation/tin snips and an orbital jigsaw with metal cutting blade . The orbital cut faster but was difficult to keep a straight line. The snips made a nice straight cut but caused wrist fatigue quickly.
Angle steel was then attached to the bed walls where the shield would be positioned against the pipes. Self tapping sheetmetal screws were used all around, along with rivets where possible.
Top piece and larger main piece were cut with 45° angle left at the top edge, to add strength and improve the aesthetic appeal. Not to mention make it easy to rivet.
To get the louvers, I picked up eave register vents from Lowe’s. A whopping $1.37 each – less than $5 to get the louvers I wanted.
In total, the cost for the entire job was less than $25. I had the sheetmetal siding and the steel angle on hand. The rest of the cost covered rattle can paint, and fasteners. Even if you had to buy the sheetmetal siding and steel angle iron, it might cost you $75.
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- Shield next to pipes. The angle steel was used to attach the shield to the pickup bed.
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- Self-tapping sheetmetal screws were used to attach the angle steel.
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- Angle steel pieces were also attached to the truck bed side walls
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- Close-up of angle steel pieces attached to side of truck bed walls
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- I didn’t take photos until I had started the build process…
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- Here’s the main shield piece, shown attached to the truck. The 45° in the crease of the siding panel was kept for the top edge.
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- In-process photo – tools and all!
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- Wires were needed to pass through the heat shield section. These would be used for the truck tool box interior lights and for the aux fuel tank sender.
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- This shows the top panel before installation. The 45° crease was also left in this piece. The top slots for the louvered register vent covers were cut in advance, using rounded corners to avoid a stress concentration later. These holes didn’t need to be pretty – they just needed to be large enough to allow air to pass out through the louvers.
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- Here, the louvers are mocked up in position over the pre-cut holes. You can also see that the rivets are in place holding the two pieces of the heat shield together (top piece and main piece).
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- Rear view of mocked up shield. The wires would be used for the truck tool box interior lights and for the aux fuel tank sender.
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- Here, the heat shield is shown sanded down and masked prior to painting.
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- Close up of the finished shield. I wasn’t crazy about the rattle can aluminum color but it worked ok. In retrospect I think white would have been a slightly better choice.
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- A set of LED “fog” lights were also attached for when hitching up the fifth wheel at night. Found `em on Ebay, they are O.K. but not great.
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- Larger view of the heat shield.
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- Overall View of the Heat Shield.
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- Sketch for RFQ
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- Second page of RFQ Sketch
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