Gonna be moving up to Minnesota soon and was planning on towing a uhaul until I saw what was underneath the bumper cover.......then got to work

Old Bumper:
http://i1112.photobucket.com/albums/.../Oldbumper.jpg

New Bumper:
http://i1112.photobucket.com/albums/.../Newbumper.jpg

Currently have a bumper receiver welded to the new bumper. It's constructed out of 2"x 4"x 0.25" rectangular tube and the angle members are 2"x8.5" x 9/16"

Planning on constructing a flatbed and scrapping the current bed which is on its way to being as holy as the old bumper.

 

You should weld a tire carrier on there!

 

Bumper looks great, nice job

 

what was wrong with the original? looked like you had a couple more years left... and good ventilation through it...

J/K,

 

What a difference!

 

Only suggestion I have is maybe making some custom bumper brackets depending on how heavy your load is. It would be terrible if you hit a hard bump somewhere on the interstate and those factory brakes bend or break on ya

 

Thanks guys, worked hard to get it done this past weekend. Was thinking of boxing in those brackets that go from the frame to the bumper. Just need to get the motivation to do it haha, kinda difficult when it's this cold out.

 

Did you use a factory built female receiver for your hitch ??

The reason for this is unless you add the reinforcement on your receiver tube at the back end the constant pounding of towing a trailer will cause it to distort or break

Depending on just how much towing one does and how poor the roads are

Just curious why you did not make your own mounts and move the bumper closer underneath the truck??

 

I re-used the receiver hitch that was mounted to the ol' holy bumper. It's very similar to this one but I added reinforcement welds between the main plate and the receiver tube:
http://www.google.com/imgres?q=bumpe...r:26,s:0,i:169

Adding a triangular piece to brace the back end of the receiver and main beam crossed my mind, but ran out of time to do that this past weekend. Now that you mention it, I should probably do that.
I didn't make my own custom brackets to move the bumper closer to the tailgate since I figured that when I construct the flatbed, I'll extend the bed out to where it doesn't look awkward with the bumper. The current bed is beyond repair (just like the old bumper, very holy). I'll try to post pics of the factory bed.

 

Fixed

Old Bumper:


New Bumper:


:wabbit2:

 

the old one had speed holes in it! lighter is faster!!

 

That's a good looking bumper, but I personally bolted a Class III Draw-Tite directly to my frame. I don't take chances with stuff like that~

http://www.etrailer.com/Trailer-Hitc...cleid=19942317