vegaskurt

In an effort to publicly display my ugly welds I decided to begin my build thread. This is my first real metal fab project. That and by starting the thread I figured it would force me to put some more time on this project in the coming weekends to get it finished. This is another BruceTS inspired copy or rip off, which ever you prefer. Just wanted to thank Bruce for answering a large handful of stupid questions I pm'd him. So why the new bumper? My factory chrome one was in good shape and I had grown tired of bouncing off the receiver hitch on obstacles. So off it went. About 15.5" at the lowest point. Should be closer to 22 once its done making the spare tire the new low point in the back. Bought a little to much. Had to order this piece of metal only from IMS Metal in San Diego. No place in Vegas sold small quantities :-( Making the 45° cut. Took the picture after throwing the circuit breaker. The basis for the mounts. Ugly weld contest winner. Using 1/4 Plate. Mounts done (for now at least) Welding the recovery hangers all the way through. Had to fill some over cuts. Thats why the weld looks like I blew my nose on it. Welded the mounts on. If you look closely to the right you can see how I extended the 2x4 another 2 inches. This seemed like a good idea at the time but later turned out to be a bad choice that required a tear down. Mounted up, the plastic shroud is just resting on it. The tab holes have not been cut yet. Wings made out of two pieces of 11ga. Notice the painters tape acting as another set of hands. This is where I began to f-up. Must of been the heat that day cause it looked good at the time. Yup, it came out way to wide for my liking. So I off roaded it the next day as is. Used it as a recover point and it held up fine. But the more I looked at it I did not like the way it looked. So cut the wings and supports back off. And trimed an inch and a half off the 2x4. Trimmed the pacman edge off the wing near the tire and welded it back up. "Pacman edge" Looking better now. So as of today this is where it stands. Need to cut the square holes for the plastic shroud. Need to cut 4 or so finishing pieces to box the wings up around the shroud. Purchase some of that weather stripping. Then its grinding, sanding and paint time. Lessons learned, when its 90+ outside, alternate beer with gatorade. Hopefully more progress later this weekend.

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amorphous

sweet mang! nice D.I.Y. work!

aaron

Ric

vegaskurt,
you keep saying "ugly welds" Id be happy to just "know how to weld" then to have the guts to try this, Im jelous, you should be proud that your doing this yourself, and NOT paying someone to do it for you.
BTW, its looking keep up the great work.

getitdone

Yea man, those are not ugly welds. So stop dissing my welds cause they look like yours!

garrett1478

i was thinking the same thing!

BruceTS

I don't consider it a rip-off if someone copies my bumper, in fact I encourage the talented individuals to make their own and will help as much as possible.

Originally I never planned on putting my bumper into production, but when I do it will be limited, since I don't want to spend all my free time fabricating them. Eventually I will have exact measurements and templates on my bumper build-up page. In a few week I should be building another prototype and may attempt to build 2 at the same time, since it won't add that much extra time.

Ric

"Imitation is the ultimate compliment"

getitdone

Thats what I always say as I duplicate Roger Browns truck.

vegaskurt

Thanks for the good feedback. Time to get back in the garage.

vegaskurt

Slow weekend. Not to much got done. The garage was about 102 degrees the entire time I was out there.

Also had to deal with a badly bent lower link, the thing looked like a boomerang when I took it off. So I got some 1.5od 3/16wall dom, notched with the metal geek calculator and welded on some currie johnny joints. To be honest I am not a fan of the johnny joints, I think the RE joints that Steve uses are the better way to go.

But I got the links put together, welded and painted.




Oh yeah the bumper....

While the paint dried on the links I cut the 5 square holes in the top of the bumper to fit the plastic shroud. But it would not sit right so out came the corded dremel and cutting disc. About ten minutes of trimming plastic it finally popped into position. I think I will add two bolts to hold it in place.



Wife is out of town next week, so I am confident I can finish it by the 18th.

getitdone

Lookin good!

Maybe this will inspire Garrett to push his harder. Or maybe he already has tons of progress and is sitting on it.

Hey yall could race! HAHAHA


btw did you have to re-align the truck after the link replacement?

miguelitro

Thanks for the great write up and not being afraid to admit mistakes! i am as beginner of a fabricator as it gets, someone actuallly gave me a welder
i am fortunate to live about 15 minutes from IMS...so when i make mistakes...you know!
I will be copying this bumper style for a buddies 4 runner project vehicle.
Mike

vegaskurt

No alignment needed. Not sure if you can align the rear on ours... Ignore that big ugly washer, its coming off. I had an idea to weld the washer to the mount to beef up the mount but I am going to hold off. The trick with the links was to match the eye to eye length of the stock ones. Luckily I had one un-bent lower link to model them off of.

I wonder how far along Garrett is now.

garrett1478

yeah, um, about that...

vegaskurt

Well it was another hot one this weekend. Got the last odds and ends cut out and welded on during the week and spent last night and today grinding, sanding, priming, painting and cursing...

First time I have ever used a flap disk, they rule!!!!

Well here it is, all that is left is the weather stripping and some more paint. The weather stripping is out of stock so I will look around in town.





I painted it a semi gloss black. Now I am thinking I should try to match the flares and possibly re-bondo some of the parts. But I'll hold off on that until I scratch the crap out of it on some rocks.

amorphous

looking good mang! some bigger meats would really spice it up!

getitdone

Boss.

ebelen1

Great job. It looks so much better than your first try.

I wonder how different it would look compared to the ones Bruce has made. It looks really good.

vegaskurt

Heh, yeah, I am so glad I chopped the first attempt up and fixed it.

Found the weather stripping at mcmaster.com. Good news is that its cheaper and you can buy a 10ft piece instead of 25ft at jcwhitney.

Part #12335A23 its 99% identical if not exactly the same dimensions as the jcwhitney stuff. $12 + shipping.

4unner4life

WOW, you threw that thing together in 15 days. It looks sweet. I agree that some bigger tires and getting rid of that spare will make that thing look awesome.