Hurricane Gordon passed through the Tampa Bay area two weeks causing very little damage and to my benefit. I found an informational road sign blown off it's post in the road and brought it home. I made a template with cardboard of the undercarriage of my 00' 4x4 Big Bear and then traced the template onto the road sign. It makes a great skidplate although it was a pain to get it cut for that just right fit. Anyway, I got the idea from this forum! I think an aftermarket skidplate cost about $125.00 for my Big Bear.
For the price, I like my homemade skidplate.

 

How did you mount it?
I have some stock laying around...and was going to cut some skid plates.

 

Jim: Yamaha has two brackets, one forward and one rear that are already welded to the frame and predrilled. After cutting the plate, I clamped it to the frame and marked through the predrilled holes on the frame onto the plate. Then I drilled the holes. I intentionally bent the rear of the plate up to mate with the rear bracket.
I didn't attempt to bend the plate at the front brackets because when the bolts were tightend, the plate pulled pretty tight. There is a silght vibration and I am going to cure that with rubber washers between the frame and plate at the fastening points. I'll let you know how it works.

 

You got lucky. I would have done the same.

I think I know the type sign you are talking about. I question the thickness. My guess is the bigger the sign, the thicker.

I have aluminum "No Parking" sign that blew over, and yes, I picked up. But, it just doesn't seem like I would want to use it on anything other than maybe the A-arms.

It seems pretty thin. Other than me stopping on the side of the highway and looking like a goof, can someone tell me if the signs do vary in thickness?

What did you use to cut the sign with? Did you remover the actual sign material, or did you leave it on. If removed, what did you use?

Thanks.

 

This sign was bigger than the regulatory info signs as it was about 31" x 18". It was a neighborhood crime watch sign all beat up. (The FBI will be at my door tonight!)

To cut the sign, I used a die grinder with a 4" diamond cutoff wheel, cut slowly because the sign was fairly thick. I clamped it between two pieces of metal and used a hammer to bend an angle at the back of the plate for mounting.

Some of the text and characters from the sign still remain but are mounted face up against the bottom of the motor. I think the aluminum should be pretty durable for the utility riding I do but if it ever fails I'll let the forum know.

Another idea I got from this forum is to go down to your local municipal maintenance garage or machine shop where the city has their vehicles repaired and what not and see if you can buy or get someone to give you an old sign that is of no use to the city because of damage or fading reflective material.

 

The guy I bought my Lt250r off of made one out of a 15 mph sign and it works great!







1991 Lt250r :
Ceet seat cover,DG alloy front bumper,DG alloy rear grabar,DG alloy nerf bars ,Emgo bars,Pro design kill switch,Maier plastic(Looks awsome I put lots of cool stickers on it),Uni air filter,Shockwears,Parking brake block off,RTC clutch lever,Motion pro twist throttle(took a while to get used to!),Leager A arms ,Ohlins front shocks(got them with the quad the look kinda old),Homemade motor skid(from speed limit sign),Turf tammers on back,IPT hole shot up front,And probly other stuff to but I cant think of all of them rite now. Please go to http://www.screaminglt250r.homestead.com

 

Just acquired a 4'x4' construction sign.

...I received it from a friend.

Will use cardboard to make a template of the frame.

Plans are to oversize the cut by about 2" on each side. I figure this should leave sufficient room to curve the sides of the skid-plate upwards to form a sled affect.

Can anyone give me some pointers on how to make the bend in the aluminum as if to form around the round tube framing?

 

Cutting the sign to flow with the angles of the frame is easy...its getting those flowing angles to wrap around the frame at the same time..that me a tougher task than you think. Let me know how you do it.

If you bend the sign around your frame, you may collect debris between the frame and sign that the carwash pressure cleaner wont get to which may cause the frame to rust...and god forbid that you collect mud in unseen places on your beautiful 400EX! ;-) All that muddy weight could slow you down... lol.

 

Very true. I looked at a couple of aftermarket plates on some friend's quads. Those were wrapped upward on the sides. My theory is to limit the possibility of the plate getting hung up on something from the edge.