You guys are right with the end caps. It would have been harder to remove the light in case it ever failed. So I left them off.
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We got so much done in these past 2 days. Yesterday I welded on clips to license plate lip. And welded the lip piece to the plate.




Primed and painted. And drilled those license plate lights.


I finally bought wheel locls for my rims. When each rim is $50-60 and each tire is $250-280 a small $16 fee is well worth thr sacrifice to protect your investment.

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Today in the morning I went to O'Reilly's and bought this 2 wire male female waterproof and corrosion proof trailer wire connect/disconnect wire. Bought it for only $3.


Mounted the LED strip.


Then the welding began. We welded the the four 1/4" thick tubing to be the mounting points of the bumper. Dad did all the welds on this. I don't have confidence in myself to weld something so important on securely.




Here are the points my dad welded the bumper to. The longer side brackets got welded straight to the frame.



The front has 3 points were its welded. Around the front box part of the hitch. And these two 4" tubes.


Had my little helper come over today to help out. She volunteered to help. Lol
Greasing up the Inside wall of the spindle.


Then I taught her how to properly grease bearings by hand. Gosh she looks so hot in this picture lol



We also had to weld on a new piece of steel that wasn't planned to be part of the plan but it was very necessary to have. This little triangle acts as a stop for the tire swing. I found that once on the truck my tire swing would want to swing all the way around to the side of the truck. So it was absolutely needed to keep from swinging out in front of on coming traffic on the street or worse. Hwy/fwy.


And here is my sexy Kingsford. All finished up.




License plate sits very nicely perfectly in the center of the wheel.




Close up of how the LED strip looks omce all mounted.


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I'm so happy guys. I really am. This is definitely one hard project to do. It was very time consuming. And although costly it was still 1/4th the price of what I would have paid anywhere else to buy already made or custom made. I enjoyed this project a lot too. Had to put my brain to work on this project for everything we incorporated into it.

Here is some shots faby took of my dad and I working having a hot fun day baking under the ridiculous temperature only to have it rain for 2 hours unannounced later on.




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EDIT:
Due to the rain we had I didn't get enough time to wire up the LED strip. I will get to it tomorrow and hopefully upload some night time shots for ya by the end of the day. I did however get started on wiring it all together inside the house. So this license plate holder is good to go now. Just need to tap I to the correct wires tomorrow and we're good to go.

 

Freaking Bad Arssssse! That is so darn cool brudda! Very nice work. ....

Good talking today, however brief. ... I have lots of wiring coming up myself, with four switches and all kinds of other crap! lol.

You and your dad did an awesome job man it looks great!

 

that is an epic bumper an swing i want a night shot please of the lights lol

hows she swing out? did you make a small hole for a hold pin like the 2nd gens have? drain hole for the jerry can?

 

Bumper looks great Richard, good job the satisfaction of yours being one of a kind is priceless, the fact you and your pops made a project out gives you memories for ever congrats man.

 

Such a great job! Gongrats! Looks incredible. Your rig's got !

 

Looking great. Congratulations on a job well done.

Do you notice the weight back there at all?

 

congratz on the bumper. looks great

 

Thanks guys. I think it came out looking really clean. It does feel heavier in the rear end though. I do agree with you jason. Its one of a kind and not to be cocky but it does look a lot better then what alot of smaller local fabricators make. I looled around on private craigslist fabricators and a few small name companies that are a drive away but still have websites and I really didn't like their work at all. And looks a heck of a lot better then what a few other yotatech, pirate4x4, Ttora etc... members have made in the past. Don't get me wrong I did see a few awesome fabbed up bumpers for people who did it themselves but there were a lot of others that I don't think took as much time in it to make with all these corners/shapes and stuff like my dad and I did. Every time I see this bumper I will always think of my dad. So that's a great memory. Glad he took an interest in something I like. Tell you what though. This experience definitely made me feel more attached to my truck now that it has more sentimental value to it!

Lmao yes she has a big booty now.

Thanks man. And After driving it around all day today and yesterday I have to say that I do feel a bit of drag in the rear. I mean after all the metal components all added up to 110lb so plus the empty jerry can, and the extra tire on steel rim. I'm esimating about 140lb or so.

I did make 2 holes in the jerry can tray. Down on the lowest 2 corners.


As for how the tire swing looks like while open. Here's a picture.


I will get to the night time pictures you asked for on that rear license plate light. I got it to work but I ran into a couple of problems. That I want to address in another post.

Ill post up those pix and details in a few minutes guys.

 

richard its time for you to move to imageshack photobucket has broke all your images for their upgrade spam

http://imageshack.us/

 

Omg you're kidding! All of my images? Or just the recent pix? Jeez nooo I even deleted a bunch of old pictures and and lota of videos so I could make room for more pix.

 

all the ones on this page are doing it

went back to the 16th um pg 94 an those are as well

 

Ok i just jumped on my PC and seen that yes every single picture i have ever uploaded onto the photo bucket is displaying that picture message. wow...... All my walk throughs.... all my progress.jeez...

Just deleted a bunch of videos and pictures. gonna delete all the ones i really dont need. just to make some more space. As of right now i am at 95% full. so my pictures should be showing up by now. But on my account Photobucket dispplays a message saying "Your bandwidth limit will reset in 3 days." So i'm assuming by wednesday my pix will be up once the stupid people on Photobucket realize that HEY HE IS STILL UNDER HIS 100% CAPACITY! Wow.... talk about being mad right now. i seriously hope that this problem if fixed quickly. Gonna have to sent them a message pleading with them to please take that off since i am now under the limit.

That website you linked; ImageShack.us Does that have a limit as well?

 

5 gig of space till ya have to pay my stuff in my thread an a few pages elsewhere so far is less than a gig

 

Flickr test....
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Got it.... So the HMTL code doestn work on flicker. I would need to use the BBCode. Which is the same thing as an IMG code on photobucket.
BTW i thought id try out FLICKR since i read that their free user package includes 1 Terabyte work of storage.

Here is the 2 holes i made in the Jerry can holder pare. The plate here is kind of slanted so i drilled the holes in the lower corners where the water would accumulate.
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This is the rear of my license holder.
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Nice bumper!

 

Now back to the light problem.
I know i mentioned this in the past but i have always had a problem with my tailgate window. It will only go down if i press the button while my headlights are on. and once i turn the lights off the window will then go back up(unless i turn off the truck of course.

So Tapping into the wires of my tail lights for some reason are causing the window to bypass all this somehow and as soon as i turn my ignition the window will automatically refuse to work even with my headlights or any other tricks that used to work. the only way it'll work is by removing the wires off the tailgate wiring harness.I seriously dont know what to think only that i must have a short somewhere.

Anyway at first i had the light working but the tailgate window refused to work "under my normal working conditions". So due to that i removed the 2 wires. i then figured i would work with the Deck Lamp switch and just tap into those wires and just make it a light that has to work with a switch. It's kind of an inconvenience to me to have to use a button or switch but whatever i didnt care at this point. I got both to work fine with each other. Then im assuming a fuse went out. because now the deck lamp wont work.

BTW is there a fuse for the rear deck lamp??? i checked a few fuses and cant find any that were blown. I double checked the bulb but that is fine. my Deck Lamp switch doesnt even illuminate now. Please let me know what i can do to make it work again. or what to check.

Due to the deck lamp wiring going out i decided to not use that one either. So next alternative is gonna be to just to go straight to the battery. If i cant figure the problem out i am just going to run a line from the 2nd fuse block that i installed and use a 15a fuse for that dedicated socket. then run power from the fuse block to a button or switch. (which will work as an On/Off switch for the license plate light.) then run from that switch to the LED license plate strip.. and just ground the ground wire to the body somewhere.
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Anyway i'm assuming im gonna use this flickr account temporarily as a trail period just to see how i like it.
Dragon you asked for pictures so here are 2. This is with just running the wiring straight to the battery. Obviously not gonna keep it like that. I only did this for picture purposes.

Keep in mind. Yes this LED strip is freekin bright and does light up the whole floor bedind my truck up to about 5ft behind my truck and about 3ft to the sides lol. But My camera picked up a heck of a lot more light then it really was. For one i had the flash on my camera turned on. and the license plate doesnt really look all white like it is in the pictures. i stepped back a couple of feet and was still clearly able to read every letter/number on my license plate. IT IS VERY WELL ILLUMINATED! lol Cops shouldnt have any complaints about being able to read my license plate. if i get pulled over it will be for being too bright lol. But i really doubt that because it doesnt blur or obstruct the sight of my plate. and also it is pointing toward the floor so there is no way in hell it would ever be blinding to anybody driving behind me. The only way it would be on somebodys eyesight behind me is if the persons hood is under my rear tires thus the light would be singing down on their face! but yea.

Best way i can put it is that this LED strip might as well be used as a reverse light lol because it iluminates alot behind me. I'm gonna have to make sure there isnt a law against having lights too bright for the license plate. But like i said it doesnt obstruct the letters or numbers at all. Everything is legible even from a couple cars distance away. Guess we'll see. Here are the pix.

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Grego Thanks for dropping by. And since you missed all the good pictures that got all messed up on photobucket i uploaded them again for you.
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yeah you should im sorry to say check the harness in the tail gate sounds like a short in it hooking up to the original plate lights shouldnt cause issue like that

i know mine had a few problems the defogger wires both off their connectors flopping around a wire to the key switch was chafed an though not hitting metal an clearly corroded like an old penny unsafe to leave it like that so i wrapped it up also securing the harness in a few extra places out of the way of the glass a pair of zip ties around the connectors holder which is slightly to the right of center towards the key lock that connector is notorious for scratching the rear glass it wont be doing that on mine!

there is a fuse for the rear deck light inside i believe

excellent light WOW thats like a great backup as well lol

bumper looks awesome and the open looks really great! oh take a moment an put some anti-seize on the spares threads you'll thank me when ya need to pull the spare off :-)

 

Wow! Haha. .... that thing is DAYLIGHT-BRIGHT! Awesome!

Sorry bout the tailgate drame..... Maybe it's time to come over and compare wiring/match to mine from the switch to the back.... ? Eric deleted all his related safety switches and his tailgate window is now hard wired from the switch straight to the window motor... he's never had a problem since. there are other ways to do this where you can simply run the primary three wires from the switch directly back 2 the tailgate... somewhere I have a couple bookmarked threads on people that have done this... I will gladly give you a hand in person if you need it . I've felt bad for you from the day that I noticed you had to do that... the previous owner has got some serious f'd up wiring going on in there I can guarantee it. It sounds like he jumped the headlight wiring to the rear window switch and that's why your headlights have to be on... the deck lamp is powered by the running lights... and ignition has to be on?..... could it just be the bulb?

Great work on all of it man, regarding the bumper and swing out... it is truly bitchin! Definitely something to be proud of and reflect on with pride! Give my props to your pops as well!

 

Do your dome light and map lights work?

 

Definitely hating flickr lol. The image codes come up with links and double pictures. You need to delete 60% of everything you copy just to be left with the IMG code.

I am just gonna make a 2nd Photobucket account. I would use other places but I've been using Photobucket for 9years and I really like the set up. I guess I'll just make it a point not to reach the limit next time. Lol.