Ranger Upgrade

This year we decided to get a UTV or Side by Side for the vineyard. Actually my Wife decided we should get one (she is a keeper!). We ended up getting the Polaris Ranger 570 (Mid). So far it has been really useful for the Vineyard and the family really likes playing with it. 

One weak area is that the bed is rather shallow and things fall out if you stack them above the sides of the bed. One other thing we found is that the kids like to hop in the back and there is nothing to hold on to. 

I did not like any of the commercially available bed rails so I decided to build my own. 

The project started out with some recycled metal that I had laying on the ground of the shop. This is steel tubing that I salvaged from a shipping crate that my wife's chicken coop came in. Yes I am really cheap and cut things up to save the scrap metal. 

First I made a cardboard template the shape that I wanted, I changed my mind several time before I got the final design. Originally it was much taller but that just did not look right. Here is the final design cut to size and mocked up on the template.

  From there I started tacking the pieces together. 

I built the main rails on top of each other to make sure they were a matched set. 

 I enlisted my son to help me. I figured that this was a good time to teach him some welding. He was an eager helper and took safety very seriously!!

 After tacking the main rails together I bolted the mounting flanges to a piece of wood that had the correct spacing for the mounting points in the Ranger bed. This made sure that they did not move during welding. Then I tacked them in place.

I added some reinforcement pieces, some bars across the front and welded and ground all the joints. Here is the final product. I am quite happy with how it came out. Not bad for some free scrap metal! I think that this project cost me less than $10