I like seeing things built instead of bought off of the shelf. You are doing a great job!!! There is a lot of work involved, but will make it satisfying when completed.

 

It looks great man! And congratulations on having a chance to work things out. I'm sure that was what you were hoping for... And if it works out, great! If not, at least you'll be going about it in a way that you won't set yourself up for a beating, emotionally! You guys had a lot of time together..... Might as well see if you can make it work. I'm telling you man, the ladies girlfriends can be 'Terminatorette's' when it comes to their friends relationships. Every relationship I've had the women have had friends like that. Twice, although they hated me during the entire relationship with my girl, they came after me once we broke up! Scandalous homie! Lol.

Best to ya!

 

Great job on the bumper!! Looks bada$$!! You cant buy blood sweat and sparks!!

 

Thanks Toyo. You think clear coat will fill the holes? I was thinking of probably just going over the welds a bit where the holes are to fill the holes and just grind them down to avoid the whole bondo stuff.


Me too Terry. I think its very inspiring when you see others work on projects like this. I will definitely be satisfied when its done. Ill have a pair or matching bumpers. And they will be the only ones of their kind on a 1st gen 4Runner. Hahaa

Thanks Mark. And about the chick. Dude her friend was just a royal Bitsh. I really disliked her. It was almost as if she was trying to cause problems between us. And well eventually suceeded. Just glad faby saw that. A bit late. But whatever just hope she learns from this experience to avoid future problems.

Omg and don't forget burns! I've accidentally touched a lot of hot surfaces lol my hands are getting a thick layer of skin from being burnt lol not to mention all the muscle soreness from grinding hours on end lol but yes you're right. Thank you man.

 

I bought the tube bender yesterday for $186. Then while at work received a complimentary email from Harbor Freight with this month's coupons. one including a 20% off coupon. So Today i returned the unopened boxes then re-bought them at the discounted price of approx $165ish.


Went digging in my dads pile of metal in our back yard and found two 21ft pipes that were about 3/16 or 1/4" thick. This sucker was super heavy! and to top it off it was rusted to hell all over the exterior! and im sure inside too. but the steel is still good underneath. Nothing that cant me sanded off with the wire wheel.




Dad says the tube is 1&1/2" thick but it looks more like 1&5/8" to me lol


Gave my dad my design blueprint and let him work his magic with his mathematical skills. lol


We measured the exterior line with a tailor's measuring tape. came out to be 43".


Grabbed the chop saw and cut the measured piece


43" tube cut already and i passed the wire wheel all throughout the surface.


After 20 minutes of working that tube bender this is all we could do. lol I have to admit the tube bender works. but this product isn't very good for bending thick tube like this one. I'm sure it would work flawlessly for something thinner. But i want to make sure this grill guard isn't going to bend straight through my grill and through my radiator if i am ever to get into an accident. I want to make sure it will take a hit like a champ. And protect my front end. that's the whole point of making this bumper. So We are gonna skip working on this for tomorrow and jump back on it Saturday. We are going to use the Acetylene torch to heat up the metal then bend the tube. We are both sure that once the metal has been heated up the tube shouldn't have any problem bending anymore.

Btw don't let the curves scare you. Once the gussets are installed on the sides the center pipe wont look so funny. And in case you are wondering the center hole area where the 8" lights are gonna be is going to have a height of 10" from the top of the bumper to the bottom of the tube. So the top of this grill guard will not be much taller then the front of my hood. Will probably pass it up by 0.5-1" if any.


Also decided to weigh the bumper as it currently sits for you guys. I know i had a couple of friends/family and yotatech people ask me on my build thread how heavy this is.
So it's currently weighing at about 63 pounds.

 

if the tube bending doesnt work, i would return it and hit up a machine shop that could do it for you. i know of a few local guys that has a tube bender i could pay a few bucks for them to do something quick for me.

anyways i forgot you had ask if there is any support for the wing (outer side of the bumper)

there isnt any support and alot like how yours is right now. the only support i see is the tube runs into the wings and goes down till it bottoms out. so that is the only support. i know your tube wont extend all the way to the sides so you might have to do something different if you were to add extra support there

 

I don't mean to hijack the thread, but I figured I'd throw this question at a couple of fellow native Californians first given the fact that you're wheeling around in the same sort of terrain as me.
I'm about to buy new tires and I want to go from 32/11.5/15 Cooper Discoverer STT mud terrains to 33/10.5/15 all-terrains. I've been looking around at BF Goodrich A/T KOs but I'm not sold on BF Goodrich.
Let me know your guys' opinion on the matter or I could always move this to another thread. Thanks for any input. P.S. I'm running a detroit in the rear and it's a daily. So, I'm probably on the road 90% of the time.

 

You should have bought the pipe bender (or kinker as most refer to it as), not a tubing roller. I fairly positive that is for thinner materials, plus I doubt you will ever get the bends your looking for out of a roller.

Here are the steps I built for my duramax using the harbor freight pipe bender.

(WOW that's a crappy picture!)

I plan to use the same bender to build some bumpers and sliders for my 4runner.

 

Looking good rich!

I am surprised that the bumper is only 63lbs. I would have figured it to be alot heavier.

I have used the Other Harbor freight bender to do some bumper stuff in the past and it works alot better than the roller. I think the one that BUMP530 is referring to is the one that I have. (Kinker)

Its not the best and really weird to use sometimes, but will bend the heavier pipe. Unfortunately you still have to but alot of A$$ and manipulation to get those darn things to work.

Cant wait to see it all finished up.

Getting close!!

 

we have the pipe bender not the roller it will with its hydrolic ram bend that thicker stuff into a curve
also anealing things a bit will help too (heat with a rosebud) before bending to relax the metal then once bent set with a hit of water

 

Damn guys I have a massive update awaiting to post. Gonna be 33 pictures. Unfortunately for you guys I've got a Halloween party I'm getting ready for so you guys are all gonna have to wait muahahahahaaa lol

All I can say is that the bunper is all finished as far as bends and welds go. Still need to do touch ups here and there. But the grill gaurd, grill gaurd gussets 8" dick cepek mounting tabs and 4&1/4" led light mounting tabs and the supports for the sides to the winch plate have all been welded on already. This baby is near ready to go already. Anyway thanks for checking up on the thread. Please check back on the thread tomorrow afternoon. I should have everyhing posted by then.

 

toyo thanks for the reply. I ended up doing the supports to the sides anyway. just copied the way Addicted offroad did theirs for the tube style bumper.
That tube roller was crap. we didnt even bother trying to heat the metal. we just took it back and bought the the bender instead; it worked flawlessly!


I loved the BFG A/t's when i had them. I know Chefyota4x4 used those for a long while too and he loved them. He said they perform great offroad and they grip alot on the pavement

Since you plan to do more street Daily driving i would definitely recomend those over M/ts you'll get better overall mileage in the long run. Much better grip during rainy weather. etc etc... good luck with your choice man.


BUMP! thank you very much for your post. after seeing this picture i was sold. We returned the roller the next day and exchanged it for the tube bender. It worked great. Thanks for your help and input bro! Plus a 12,000 pound bender will definitely beat manual labor any time lol

Dont be so surprised yet. lol It is gonna weight a hell of alot after im done adding everything on to it. you are definitely right. I returned the roller and got the bender instead. Talk about a night and day difference between the 2. cant see what the roller costed more. the bender did soooooooo much better! 20 min with the roller had me pulling my hair out already lol

yea we went the hydrolic bender route in the end. the roller is crap.

THANK YOU ALL FOR YOUR INPUT. it definitely made my job much easier in doing this bumper's grill guard.

 

Alright guys here is the update!

After seeing Bump530's picture and all of your guys's inputs, recommendations, personal experiences and such i was pretty much sold on getting the tube bender instead. So the following day after reading all your posts i took the Tube roller back to harbor freights and exchanged it for the 12,000 tube bender. http://www.harborfreight.com/12-ton-...der-32888.html

Here we are unwrapping our new product.


Marking up where to make our bends to match the template my dad drew for the grill guard.


after the grill guard we immediately ran into a problem. I drew out my design according so Mark's 8" Dick Cepek offroad lights would fit. but i didnt take into consideration the Smittybilt xrc8 winch control box. It didnt matter where i placed the box it would continue to be in the way of the lights. So we ha to cut the center hoop to the grillguard in half and add another 6" to the width so we could fit the winch correctly and add the two 8" lights.
See what i mean:






Cleaned it up all nice.


We welded on the center grill gaurd then ground it down a bit to prep for another weld layer.


Made some light tabs for Mark's 8" Lights


I got anxious and couldnt wait to see what it looked like so i added on the winch and Mark's lights.


We cleared the Winch control box.


I cut out the grill guard gussets


That's about where i want them.


Dad at work welding the gussets on for me.


Cut out the side reinforcements. I took this idea off of Mark's AddictedOffroad bumper. Thanks for letting me get a closer look at your bumper man. im positive this will definitely hold up those sides.


Gotta fab up some tabs for my 4&1/4" LED lights


Here are my Light tabs that will hold up my LED lights


Here are a bunch of pictures my mom took of us working together. I decided to keep them so i can look back on all the father son time we had brainstorming exactly how these darn lights were gonna fit in the bumper without being in the way of the the side reinforcements.














Side reinforcements are all welded on now. And so are the LED light tabs.




Figured i'd show a close up in case you guys were curious to see how it looked.




Re weighed the bumper again after we were done and it seems to have gained 20pounds. wow. tube can get heavy!


After we finished up i just had to dress up the bumper with some sexy offroad parts.
rear side:


Top view


Reweighed the bumper with all the stuff and wow! it is at 140pounds.



Couple of nice front shots






Side view showing how we angled the grill guard slightly forward.

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Man what an Update. that was a heck of a lot of pictures! lol All good. I always like being very thorough and showing many pix for you guys. This is just one step closer for my bumper being finished. All that is left is just to re weld in the areas where the plates were joined together and welded. I have a couple of small pores throughout the bumper that i wanna fill up. I have no clue on how to use bondo so i would rather just weld those tiny holes up and grind and sand them down to look clean. I will be doing that sometime this week. then i want to put on 2-3 coats of primer. Followed by about 4 coats of Matt black color to match my rear bumper and sliders.

Its coming along. Definitely happy with how it has all came along so far. I had to sit back and just look at the bumper for a minute yesterday. i was just amazed that my dad and i came out with such a clean looking bumper. Not trying to be cocky or anything. Just saying, for some reason i didn't expect it to come out this good. It's hard to believe we pulled off my design so exact and and made it look so damn clean. It was only a few weeks ago when it was just a drawing on a sheet of graph paper. What an awesome transformation.
Makes me happy to see i will be the only one in the world with 2 matching bumpers like this. And it makes me feel much better knowing we were able to incorporate everything i wanted in this bumper. Very grateful for having my dad and his skills and tools. Without him i would have had to settle for something else that wouldn't have been as satisfying for me. Love you dad! Gotta tell you though. This is probably the last time i will ever make a bumper. This front bumper was a heck of a lot worse to fab up. Although it was fun i doubt ill ever want to make one again. Unless it is to help out my lil brother(if he decides to buy a truck) And even at that it will be a pain in the arse again lol

Alright guys. this post is big enough already im out hope you all like.

 

absolutely awesome that is gona turn heads an it looks incredible

i was wondering if you were going to incorporate LED turn signals into the bumper

 

Hi Will. Thanks for the compliments. I really hope it turns heads lol I like the attention when u drive the truck around.
To answer your question about the turn signals. Yes I do plan to incorporate he lights. I bought the trailgear LED turn signals. I have 2 choices for how to mount these lights. I can either drill through the front plate face. And mount them there. Or weld the tabs provided to me by trailgear onto the inside of the gussets. And run the wires down through the top side of the plate down to the stock turn signal wires.

I honestly like the way it looks a lot more when mounted to the gusset. The lights stick out a little when mounted to the front. I don't know if I would like that in the long run.
Here are the 2 views of what I mean.

 

Awesome! That is freaking sick! I personally like it better on the plate, but I see what you mean as far as sticking out their. However, it can't hurt for it to be seen a little closer to the corners / risen a little bit, as for safety. But just all in all I think it looks cleaner as far as uniformity, where you're holding it on the front portion of the plate. Maybe you could make a little recessed box for to sit in so its not sticking out. Just mounted on the stairs for now on the gusset, that way you can always add it later in the front if you like it better. Don't forget you need resistors or those blinkers will flash super fast.... All of em. Or mod your blinker relay.

 

The bumper looks good. Glad I was able to help ya out on the bender lol.

 

im putting this as a suggestion as ya have round holes why not get a round hole type LED an mount it in the bumper flush where the second picture shows you holding the TG unit on the front
or maybe even an oval one? or just like the small TG unit?

im just curious

 

Looks great! Tell your dad he did a graet job too!! Not everyone has a pops to help out like that. Im anxious to see how bright that thing lights up.

 

Your bumper turned out sick! Can't wait to see it all painted and mounted on your 4runner, you guys really did a fantastic job! I agree with Mark on the turn signals, think they look a little better on the plate, maybe sunk in like he mentioned so they don't stick out as far. I can't wait to replace my old Smittybuilt, after seeing your front and rear bumpers, I think I'm definitely leaning towards a plate style bumper rather than the tube style. once again nice job!