Dude! you need to put back to black on your top! my truck is very similar to yours, but in about an hour, you can have your top shining and black as can be, it'll make a world of difference! Very nice job though! Good find!

 

What's up man!! I love going back and reading through your thread. Makes me wish mine was as clean as yours.

 

Haha clean that's funny if only you seen it in person. But thank you glad you like. lol

I've slowly been getting progress done on my front bumper. I actually started a new thread for that project to avoid cluttering up this build thread. I posted a link in my last comment somewhere for that project.

But yea I got the 2 center bumper pieces cut already. Tomorrow I'm gonna start cutting the rest of the bumper parts then hopefully ill be done in time to at least weld everything together, assuming everything goes well.

 

That's great man. I need to get some more done on my runner. I finally got the engine in two days ago and have been driving it back to work. I really need to rebuild my front axle with that marlin kit I bought a while back. Just can't find the time!

 

Oh wow I must have missed that. I've been away from Yotatech all week almost. Mostly due to that dental work i had done last weekend and the nasty deep cut i got on my finger on friday. Then My faby and i broke up recently after months of problems we had a mutual breakup. Plus ive been doing "Insanity" workouts for the past month. Been trying to stay on schedule with it every day and I'm slowly getging back in shape. I gotta get my toned figure back so I can get back in the dating scene. Jk Lol mostly doing it for myself because diabetes runs on both sides of my family and I wanna steer away from that. Also I already met one girl at a friends party last saturday and she seems really down to earth nice short white girl with blond hair and blue eyes, and great smile. So far seems like she has a great personality. She is a very smart chick with a 4.0 in college. We've been keeping in touch but we have yet to go on a date. We would have gone out this weekend but she has company. So we'll have to wait.

I say u set one day aside. You can definitely do the whole rebuild in one day. Unless u wanna repaint and such then yea u need more time lol.

 

Wow! .....hmmmmmmm. musta missed something! Lol

 

So pretty much this is all summed up for the past 2 weeks.

Alright guys I managed to get some type of progress in. Not a lot. but it was just fitting the prototype. Either way it was still fun.

My favorite shot.




I realized i have too much of a bump on the bottom side of those corners. It has a lot to do with how the bumper is curving like an arch. but even when straightened out you can still see a slight bump.I'm just going to need to make sure that when i do the real thing to tack weld those ends first before actually welding. Also the small square piece that connects the front face to the side is too square. i need to make it more at an angle; i think so at least. Maybe im just being too picky now. but I'll make sure to fix this when the real bumper comes around.


Dont mind the top curve. it isnt going to be like that once it is made of steel. It curves because the sides are to heavy for the center to hold up with just hot glue lol Also see the center holes. This should be plenty of ventilation for that radiator. they are pretty big size so even though the winch is there i'm sure it will get plenty of air.


Corner


Winch spot



Now here are the few problems i ran into:

The bumper needs to be shortened a total of 3/4" to be able to clear the screws and clips that hold the grill in place. So that will need to come down some. As you can see in the picture below that bumper is right up against the grill.


The whole overall width of the bumper needs to be shortened 1.5". I thought i had the measurements correct and i drew everything out according to all measurements the tape measure gave me and also based on the stock bumper dimensions, but when i had the stock bumper width at 66" from edge to edge(where the bumper ends go to the wheel wells) it just looks goofy. It's too wide and you can definitely tell. Will need to shorten about 1.5 maybe even 1&3/4 to be flush with the fenders.

The corner piece had a gap on both sides. i am going to need to bring in this piece about another inch toward the center. I put arrows to show from where to where.


Also going to need to shorten the side piece that goes to the wheel well(where my thumb is at). Drew a line where i'm going to need to cut. this will have to be shortened about 1" on both sides.





Fitting and troubleshooting. This is the main reason i don't start off working with steel. Always gotta make sure everything fits before i buy steel and begin to cut. Steel cost a lot of money and i would hate to have to buy steel twice!


EDIT:
Oh yea also. i don't plan to use that skid plate thing on the front. It restricts me from being able to put the winch bolts through. its too close to the holes. So i might need to either bring the plate down about 0.5" just to clear that hole. or just build an entirely different plate of some sort.

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Alright so i have some good and bad news. Good news is that i finally bought the plate steel. This is 3/16" thick. I believe these 2 sheets should be sufficient enough to make the bumper. Plus i still have 1 sheet (about2.5'x2.5') that i had left over from the rear bumper i made a while back; that one being 1/4" thick. Not bad at all guys. This steel only came out to $61. I was expecting somewhere around $80 for this scrap metal.


The nasty bad news is that i slit my finger! OUCH!!!


I literally have a flap on my finger! Went to the BOBCO Metal store out here in Los Angeles Ca to buy the steel And as I've previously mentioned before when doing the rear bumper. This Vendor has a scrap metal section that they sell for a heck of a lot cheaper and they have small and big pieces of scrap of different thicknesses.

They have shelves upon shelves and some sheet metal sitting on pallets standing in an upward position.
and while pulling out the 1st piece the bottom side got caught on the pallet that it was sitting on causing my right hand to lose grip as i pulled. Then the sheet slipped out of my right hand followed by my left hand. And as it slipped out of my hand it sliced from where the nail grows all the way down to the front part of the finger. I was able to feel every rigid bumpy dirty sharp edge that cut through. Could have had a chunk taken off. But worst of all is that those metal sheets have surface rust and metal oils or grease. Its just really dirty! Glad I had my tetanus shot within the past 2 years. But dang, my entire arm was throbbing. Felt like I had another heart beating in my hand. Guess I can't do any projects on this truck without getting into some kind of trouble. I always get some sort of deep cut or burn when working with metal. It never fails

I tried sucking whatever bad contaminants i could out with my mouth as an employee went in to the building to search for a first aid. This guy took so damn long and as i was holding the pressure while keeping my hand elevated a fellow customer offered me a temporary fix. He gave me some Toilet paper folded into a square then offered some of that SUPER DUPER THICK STICKY DUCT TAPE. It did the job in stopping the bleeding.

Finished my purchase and called my lil' bro to get the 1st aid kit ready with specific pieces. Upon arriving home i washed my hands as best i could then attempted to remove that super duct tape. Only problem is that the duct tape was that super thick sticky one! So every time i tried to remove it would pull on my skin flap. Then i just cut the damn thing open only to realize that the blood that had soaked into the gauze and toilet paper had dried. And this guy here(me) tried pulling on it thinking it was gonna come loose. Boy was i wrong lol had to soak it in warm water to remove.

Once removed it only got worse. When we had to semi lift up the flap to clean under it. I was only able to lift it so much before i felt the shocking pain going from my fingertip to elbow and back. I guess it didnt help the pain that we were cleaning it with rubbing alcohol but i wanted to make sure i was going to to avoid infection. I'm sure i probably needed stitches but ive had a similar cut like this on my knuckle and just as deep previously and it healed fine over time. So I'm just gonna leave it as is and clean it up 2ce a day or so. Took one of my moms pain medicine and worked out. Surprisingly the work out took my mind off the pain a bunch. lol now it only hurts when i touch it.

Anyway i know you guys dont wanna read about my cuts lol but i just thought it would be a nice cringing story since i know how much you YotaTech people love reading about people's injuries. jk lol That's all for now. Gonna head out for a night with the guys then probably get to work on outlining these metal sheets with my masonite templates.

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Sorry for not replying sooner guys. I had some major problems this week that didnt allow me to get to my bumper work. My finger is healing well. This weekend my wisdom teeth were killing me. Ive had this horrible pain since last weekend. and this week it was on and off.

The wisdom teeth had been growing out completely side ways and growing into my teeth jacking up the straight teeth i have. I seen a dentist and they quoted me $1600 for just the cleaning and to fix about 6-8 cavities. But that wasnt even to touch my wisdom teeth they would need a specialist to come in and it would be costing me up to 1800 just to have the 2 teeth removed. I couldnt believe it. Where the heck was i gonna get that kind of money?!?

Then i remembered i have family that live in San Diego and they all used to live in Tijuana Mexico aka Baja Ca. So i called them up and agreed to meet up on my aunts day off from work.
I know it has nothing to do with my bumper. but i would like to share the gnarly pix and share with you some of the scenary out there.

Crossed the border to Mexico and headed to the dentist, But before that we made sure to go to grab me some really gooooood mouth watering birrea tacos for breakfast Yum!


Afterward we hit up the dentist.
As you can see my bottom 2 wisdom teeth were growing completely sideways and putting pressure on my other teeth causing pain and making the rest of my bottom teeth crooked. After 1hr and 40 minutes the surgeries were a success. Honestly feel that this dentist was way better then the ones in the US. He was more gentel. And I only paid $400 to have both teeth removed. That would have easily been $1600-2000 in the states. Unfortunately for the way they were growing they had to take the teeth out in pieces. The right one in about 3-4 and the left one in 2.


And how can we leave Mexico without hitting up the raspado shop and getting some authentic raspados(shaved ice ice cream) and the best mexican candy ever! Got me my raspado before the surgery so I could enjoy then the candy afterwards


Due to the fact that i was born over there i was almost held. but the border cop i spoke with was really cool and obviously knew i grew up over here in the US because my spanish isnt the greatest. Guess it helps just talking to people and being down to earth. so happy he let me go. But we were delayed 1.5 hours on top of the 2.5 hours we had already spent in the border line to come back over. Jeez i definitely need to get my passport!

Anyway enough about that. I shall start working on that bumper soon guys i promise.

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Hi Guys. i was able to get 2 pieces accomplished today.
Started off by out lining the 2 center pieces of the bumper with my Masonite templates. We pulled out the acetylene torch to cut the pieces quick like last time but we kinda ran into some problems. We ran out of Acetylene before we could eve start lol So i went out to harbor freight and bought some metal tips for my jigsaw I didn't plan to use this but this is the only alternative i have right now.

These are the tips i bought


Here are my 2 cuts. top and center front bumper pieces. I cut these out first because I want to make sure the top piece will clear my winch if i ever had to take it out. Plus i need to make sure the depth from front to back will be fine when i start off. because i do know it did sit a bit too long when i fitted the bumper to the truck. So once i have these 2 pieces ground down to a smooth surface and tack welded ill have something to start working on building the rest up.


Not much accomplished. Spent too much time at Harbor freight just to buy these dang blades. I'll continue to cut some more tomorrow guys. or at least get that center piece welded together so i can fit that winch for clearance.

 

Oh yea and this is the chick I've been talkin to. Shes the one to the right.

 

Man that's a long update! Lol. Sorry to hear about the break up. That stuffs always hard to deal with especially along with everything else going on in normal day to day living.

Glad to see progress coming along with the front bumper. Looks like it's going to be pretty badass when you are done.

New chick looks very cute. Btw

 

front bumper looks excellent
im sorry to hear bout faby
all i can say is good luck with the exersize an health
OW on the teeth

 

She's CUTE!..... but, does she like campin/wheelin? Haha. ... I wish you the best no matter what man!

 

I have same concern as Mark I hope she doesn't steer toward an Escalade - LOL!

Sorry to hear about you and Faby, Richard.

 

I'm sorry too, brother! But, as I've said many times.... I would rather have a clean break after trying for a few months, than to go on for years in something in which neither person is really happy! You're too young for that!

I would never presume to tell you what to do, but just please take your time with whatever you do next?... Human beings,.... we don't want to be alone. I just know from experience, some of the worst relationships I've ever seen are rebound ones. Taking your time,...just dating and stuff, enjoying being single for awhile?... <-- Definitely the most happy people....The ones that go that route.

I'm proud of you, as a friend, Richard... For working so hard at trying to make it work... Or I should say, trying your best to see if it could.

Best wishes in whichever path you go next!

 

Hi guys. Well since i dont have many people checking up on my Bumper Fab thread i'm just gonna go ahead and copy and paste the progress on here too so you guys can also keep up with the project.
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I got tons accomplished today. Started the day off at about 1:00pm.
I tack welded the 2 center pieces of the bumper where the winch plate is. After i tack welded i had my dad check up on my work and he didnt have very much to complain about. He just said my welds are getting better.
Dad touching up my tack welds:


Squaring stuff out to make sure it isn't all thrown off when i add the rest of the pieces.


Completed my welds for the center pieces. I know i know I'm not the greatest welder. I'm still learning getting the technique down. but i have full confidence that my welds will hold, they just look messy thats all lol



I cut up the rest of the pieces to the bumper with the jigsaw.
NOTE:
- Cutting with the acetylene torch like i did for the rear bumper will save your tons of time when cutting out the pieces BUT the down fall to that is that you will spend lots of time grinding the melted metal edges down.
- I found that when cutting with the jig saw, although it took much longer to make all the cuts, it was way cleaner. All the pieces i cut were ready to be welded together right after i cut. practically didnt even need to grind anything.
***That was just a thought. Just in case you didnt know which route to go.***

Adding the top side of the bumper:


I ran into some problems with the hole saw today. The smaller size worked fine. as you can see the oval shape in the center came out fine. But when i tried to get the 4&1/4" holes cut they just barely scratched the surface. This hole saw sucks! So i figured i would just cut a smaller hole in the center. then try to cut the circle with the jig saw. but the 1/4" metal on the winch plate is too thick and i wasted 2 jigsaw blades by trying to cut through it. So you will see in the following pictures that the holes didnt get finished. I am going to go fill my dad's Oxygen and Acetylene tanks at a local welding supplies store during the week. Then i'll be able to get those circle holes cut out just fine with no problem at all.

Tack welding it all together






Smittybilt XRC8 Winch fits perfectly!


As of right now i just left the bumper tack welded together because i still need to fit the bumper to the truck and i might have to make some alterations to the sides. So I'll just leave it as is to make sure it fits just right before i make the final welds. I still need to add some reinforcement behind the face of the bumper. So dont think it's gonna stay like this lol
Will continue to do some more tomorrow morning.

 

Sorry for the long update. Ive just neglected my build thread and yotatech all around for almost a month. So I figured id get you all caught up. As for being sorry for Faby and I. It's okay dont feel sorry because i sure dont. This has been a problem we have been dealing with on and off and has been escalating for the past 10 months. Sure it felt bad. but it didnt hurt me toward the end because i had been expecting this to happen for a good long while now. So it was expected. I wont get into details of what happened but this was the best choice for me. I need to move on to something and someone better. Don't have time to be playing head games. We left on good tems; like i said it was mutual. I was just fed up with all the drama and it was only getting worse. So i just put my foot down and ended it.


Thanks Will, As for faby and i Read the reply to Gizler.
As for the exercising. Dude I lost 10 pounds in the 1st 2 weeks; went from 239.7 to 229.5. Since then i have been fluctuating up and down from 227-231.
I know ive been gaining muscle and loosing fat. The scale obviously is showing that i am gaining but thats because muscle is heavier then fat. Honestly all i care is that my clothes are fitting me better and better and you can definitely tell ive been toning up. That's enough for me lol

As for my teeth, yea i still have the 2 holes where the teeth were. stitched of course but u can see down to the bone. Honestly i was freaking out when i seen my jaw bone marrow there lol but i asked my cousin who also had 4 of her wisdom teeth surgically removed 2 weeks ago and she said hers look the same. (and she had hers removed out here in the USA) Then her older sister had hers done about 1year ago and he holes are still closing. Apparently having your gums close up in the far back takes pretty long lol. But having their input made me feel at ease.

Thanks Mark. I agree. She's pretty. I dont know if she likes camping or wheeling yet. I thought i'd ease up on letting her know about my yota/offroad addiction slowly lol I have mentioned that this is a serious hobby i have. but havent let her know how big of a hobby it is haha

I do know she used to be in softball and wanted to play football before. So she isnt a wimp lol But like i said Ive only been talking/texting her for a week. It could go both ways still.

Ray, I would never buy an Escalade! hahaa If i ever went big i would definitely buy a tundra or a 4door 4runner. I will never stop wheeling! I LOVE IT TOO MUCH!
As for the Faby problem read my reply to Gizler.


Chef, you know some of what has been going on between us. and you know that ive damn well tried my best to make it work. but in the end it just wasnt gonna happen. Ive realized that it isnt worth all the arguments and fighting with each other. So yea like you say its better just to finish it off.

Don't take this as a rebound. I have drifted so far away from her over the past few months that it made it easy to just let her go. I had pretty much already moved on toward the end. I was just waiting for the right time to break it off with her. As for the new girl it's like i said before Ive only been talking to her for one week. Haven't officially gone on a date yet. So for all i know it might not work out. I'm just going with the flow right now. But i have been going out to clubs with friends and dates lately too. I'm just enjoying the freedom right now. This new girl is just one that caught my eye that i really liked. We'll see what happens.

 

lookin real good! richard! awesome all round

 

Bumpers looking awesome man. I've said it before, it's great that you are able to have your dad help you out like that. I wish my dad lived closer to me.

Still can't believe how cheap you picked up that steel for!! You are really motivating me to build. Bumpers Between your back bumper build and this front one. Can't wait to see this all done and on your runner.

Glad you are working out and staying healthy. That's one thing the wife and I make sure we stay up on. Well she works for the local PD so she sort if has to. But I work out with my two friends every day (also cops). Anyhow, the wife has done insanity and got toned up. I have done p90x a few years back and went from 240 down to 210. Those programs work really well. Especially if you follow the meal plan.

Sorry for all the jibber jabber in your thread.

More pics of the bumper now!!

 

Thats awesome how you made a template out of cardboard. Never thought of that before. The welds so far look great, and im assuming the winch is 8000lb??? Doesnt seem like enough but i dunno, most i see with bigger tires and lift like you have go with 10k or 12k winches. Cannot beleive you went to the dentist in mexico. We have alot of hispanics in our town cause we have MBA chicken plant and they use to tell me how nice it is there and how there saving money here to build nice homes there and now they are scared to go back cause of all the cartel business and possibly being murdered or captured if they do not pay them off.

BUT.....anyways hang in there richard, always like seeing your rig progress.

 

Thanks. I'll see if i can get the corner pieces added on to the bumper today. i'll take some pix if i do.

I did pick up all that steel for pretty cheap. and i might not even need to use all of it lol. I was looking at how much i was gonna have left over. I might be left with about 1/2 a sheet.
I have the P90x videos and only did it for 1 month. i didnt have the proper gear to do all the workouts. and the pull up bar didnt fit on any of the door ways in my house lol so i ditched that set of videos lol At least you n your wife keep it up. Its always nice to have somebody to work out with even if it is girl.



Yea it was Masonite board. Usually used for construction sites on the floor. but yea its like a really thick cardboard. My winch is a 8000lb winch. It is enough to handle our little trucks. I usually see the bigger f150s or chevys using 12k winches. We dont need them that big for ours because theyre fairly light. Internet says our trucks weigh 3,720–3,760 lb. So with all the extra's im sure im still under 4500. Chefyota4x4, Toyotech559, and my neighbors pick up truck, and a few others have the same winch i bought.

The dental work wasnt too bad actually. I felt comfortable because my aunt goes to and from Tijuana Mex. to San Diego a lot because we still have family out on that side, and they buy a lot of stuff out there from time to time. So she stilll knows the area pretty well. I WOULD NEVER GO ALONE! lol But She took me to the dentist that did her daughters braces and works on all of my 4 aunts kids. That dentist recommended me to a specialist who went to school out here in Oxnard, and teaches dentistry at a University out there. The fact that he teaches the subject made me feel at ease.

I do however know exactly what you mean about the cartel and kidnappings and so forth. I have a few of those stories for 2 family members and 2 friends. and I do have to say that it is scary out there. if you go into the wrong parts of town.

One of my great uncles who is pretty wealthy got kidnapped and exactly like what happens in the movies is what happened to him. We got him back but after that they sold all they ever owned out there and moved to the USA. it was enough of a scare for them to never go back. My grandfather owns his house out there as well and he rents the property. And he had a very close encounter as well. luckily for him he knows the area so well that he managed to lose them. So yea its kind of scary. You never want to drive out there in a nice car or wear jewelry and nice clothes. You want to look as much like you belong to the lower class as possible lol Anyway enough of that talk haha I don't want to get scared cuz i gotta go back this coming up Saturday to have my stitches removed.

 

needle nose pliers works good for removing stitches