I was surfing the web for a tank skid and I ran into a thread on fabbing up your own. This was origanlly done by Okie Terry and copied several times. The skid is welded straight to the trailer hitch. So I took a look at my XJ and found 2 problems. 1- The hitch used was an OEM and mine is aftermarket. The difference is that the oem mount is longer than mine. 2- well you'll see later.

I took measurements and even took out the old angle finder to see how many degrees the tank is. I ended up with 38x21. Mocked up the skid by cutting up pice of carboard. Once cut up I taped it to the hitch. The bend will be 19.5" from the back end at 30deg…. Sorry I'm on vacation so theres no pics at the moment. It'll make more sense once I upload the pics.

Post edited 1:42 am – April 11, 2011 by Xjay98

Flipped the skid right side up to prep and tack the wall. Found it easier this way.

After making a couple beads to both walls I started closing it up. I placed some heavy steel to keep the bottom from warping. NOTE: If the hitch extension wasnt added, the wall would start closer to the back. That extreme angle would have less surface area and be very weak IMO.

Post edited 1:36 am – April 11, 2011 by Xjay98

Since I used 1/16" steel I was going to stack another 1/16" after I had everything welded. I was on a budget so i decided to use a 2" wide 3/16" thick flat bar to strengthen the area I THOUGHT would take the hit. Luckily I had that flat steel laying around. Figured out of the years of wheeling how many times have I really smacked the tank? None… Scraped a bunch of times thats all.

I also tied it up the wall to the mount

Thanks guys!

Justin— If you want you can have the templates I used. They're only cardboard anyway.

For some reason I'm on this fab kick all of the sudden. I have a motorcycle to build and all I can think of is the next Jeep mod.

No idea on that.  I wonder what the difference would be? Pretty easy acually. Just measure the width of the hitch then the legnth from hitch to the end of the tank. Most important part is the angle. I think my tank angle was 20 something degrees. I ended up going 30 to give me some space.