It was a hot July afternoon, during one of our weekend trips. My buddy Cesc and me were having a cold beer, admiring the mountains, when suddenly this conversation came out:
.-Me: You know buddy, I would like so much to learn to weld...
.-Cesc: Well I know a little bit, but if we have to learn seriously, letīs go for it !!!
We continued drinking our beers quietly, also admiring our Toys, and I had no better idea than saying... :
I would also like very much to have a new front bumper, but there is nothing exactly what I want here in Spain. I have it all on my mind. It also must have a winch, off course...
Suddenly, without saying any word, we had a deep eye contact (not a gay one...), so we realized that both of us were thinking the same.
.-Cesc : And what about if we fab them ???

The next weekend we sat in front of Cescīs PC and started drawing some ideas ( unfortunatelly, we have more for the future ...;-)
For me, it was very clear that the bumper had to start inspired on Front Range Off Road bumpers style (unfortunately not sold in Spain and very expensive to import...).
We took of the original front bumper and started taking measurements and putting them into the pc.










After many, many, many hours, and when I say many, means that we sat many ours in front of the pc, finally we had the final design.












Cesc take care of the technical part, calculous, structures, drawing, etc...
Meanwhile I sat next to him, with my stupid face, looking how this guy worked with CAD.
From time to time I opened my mouth just to say:
.-Me: Can we round this edge ???
.-Me: Can we move the hole ???
.-Me: Are you sure this is going to fit in our rigs ??? Sometimes computers make mistakes... (I was wrong...).

On the next step we got all metal pieces cut by laser. 8 mm thick for the center box, and 4 mm thick for the wings of the bumper. (Total weight of the bumper 36kg, and 31kgs the winch)





After we got all the pieces of the puzzle, the funny part of the project started.
Here was, where I got to support my buddy with something more than ideas. So, lets start to weld.
My brother Willy came to give us some advices (he is an expert welder).
On date and at the exact hour I was prepared to start my adventure.
I spent the previous night, watching weld tutorial videos. This was like watching porn movies, without having any real sex experience yet... ;-)
After first indications, my brother gave to me some pieces of metal to feel the welder.
Seems to be that they liked the welds, cause they directly gave me part of the bumper to weld.
So after that, I was officially baptized as the welder of the team ;-)





Professional welders, please donīt puke !!! Hope they are not so bad for a newbee ...












Some pieces were pre-curved before positioning them, as for example the corner plates of the bumper.
Cesc, fabbed a stamp for those pieces. (He is a proffesional matrixer ).





Iīm going to explain the funny story about our brand (we are not pros, and this is just a hobby for us).
While we were designing the bumper, we had the strong feeling, that we liked so much what we were drawing.
And Cesc commented: Man !!! this will look like a pro bumper, we should have a brand, hahahahahahahaha !!!!
Me.- You are not going to believe me, but I have the name.... FatMouse !!! A few days before while I was smoking a tunning cigarette, at night , watching the stars; I had a vision...
If I sometime create a company (donīt missunderstand me, I am a surgeon, way to far related to the off road industry) it wil be called FatMouse.
.-Cesc: Man I like the name...FatMouse Off-Road !!! From today and on every thing we fab for our trucks, will have our own brand. We were just kidding ...
Five minutes later Cesc gave the order to the pc to draw the Fatmouse brand on our bumpers, hahahahahahahahahahaha.
And this is the story about our brand.
So, kids... Donīt smoke !!!! ;-)







Slowly, pieces were forming the bumper, and somebody was loosing to much saliva ....








Cesc and Willy working on the bumper...







Finally this started, to seem a bumper...





Serial production !!!








Thanks to Cesc, we had all machinery and tools we needed.
Watch video:

http://es.youtube.com/watch?v=KZCc5qRaOy0


Detail of the corner light support.




We decided to do some mods, during the fabrication. We put this piece of perforated metal sheet to hide the radiator and lines...





We added reinforcements to the bumper, cause we had nothing better to do , hahahaahahahahahahaha !!!!!!








Final adjustments !!!





We went out to the street to admire it with day light !!!









Will it resist ??????





We rounded edges.





This is a detailed picture of the holes we made, to fit a cut-off for the positive of the winch.





After we polished all the details on the metal, we applied epoxy putty with little alloy fragments in it, to correct imperfections.






After, I learned that I donīt have to apply so much putty on the bumper... Gosh Damn it !!! This putty became so hard !!!! Hahahahahahahaha !!!!







We finished !!!!
Now to the painter ...




Satisfaction faces !!! Nothing like creating with your own hands, while spending a grate time !!!




After we got the bumpers from the painter, we mounted the winch to the bumper, corner lights and cut-off.
We turned the solenoid box 180š, to let the winch plugg free (we thought the connector was on top of the box, but model was changed) not a big problem at all.








Detail of the corner light mount.






Before fitting the bumper, we cut part of the inner plastic fenders, and trimmed the metal sheet under the lights.





And this is the final result !!!


















We also fabbed a new cb antenna mount.





Soon I will put more pictures of Cescīs Toy. It was dark for him and pictures were crap...
Hope you like it.
Feel free to criticize !!!

This is not he end... soon we will fab something new hehehehehehehehehee !!!!

To be continued ...

Thanks for reading.(Sorry for my english...)
Cheers !!!
Facu
;-)

 

That looks awesome. So awesome.

 

that bumper is a work of art!!
really really beautiful
I want one (hell I want two) on my 1st gen pu.

 

Very nice

 

This is quite possibly the best Yotatech thread ever... and the final product is amazing. Great work!

 

wow thats cool, where did you get that bash plate on the yellow runner??

 

Very good work!
That is cool you guy's have the skills to do this.

You should come up with a logo too for stickers if you produce these, and maybe even have the decal/sticker on the front or side of the bumper by the name.

 

that turned out amazing man, I am learning mastercam in school right now and will hopefully be able to make a bumper like that soon

 

that is the coolest looking bumper out there. pretty sweet guys awesome work. What is your forcasted selling cost? and any chance you will be making one for a 1st gen or 3rd gen!?

 

I should have tried it on the side of the bumper too, but you get the idea.





Updated

 

Wow!... just Wow! That is a great bumper. I'm no welder but the welds looked perfectly good to me. There's nothing at all wrong with your english either, it was better then a lot of posts we have here lol...
It looks like you have the start of a great business there, from what I've seen there is a demand for that kind of product in the EU and a "domestic" manufacturer would have definite market access advantages. If you wanted to go that route I would suggest developing a version of the bumper with a grill guard hoop similar to an ARB.
Congratulations again on a job very well done.
and welcome to the family
Aviator

 

nice job... i want one for my 91 pickup.

 

I think that mouse is a little too fat IMO Corey. I think something standing up on two legs might look better... sort of a mouse version of Remy's brother from Ratatouie [sp] or else a fat Jerry mouse...

but I'd take a small rectangular sticker in black with the pearl gray script and put it some place on my truck...

maybe jimmy dean can come up with something?

 

Nice bumper. Looks like you guys had fun.

The Toyota logo and name might get you into some legal issues if you market those.

Normal eye wear is no substitute for safety glasses when grinding.

 

WOW
i would love to do a weld a bumper kit it would be so fun and you end up with a killer bumper...

what program did you use??
i know some machine shops so i could get the parts cnced

 

looks really good, great

 

And I want a 1st gen !!!! Hahahahahahahaha (Very rare here in Spain;-()

Are you smoking same ciggars as me ????

Please let me know what a bash plate is ???

We thought on that but we donīt know any cartoonist, ideas are welcome !!!

Laws in Spain amazingly donīt allow to put grill guard hoops on custom made bumpers ;-(

Delivered !!! hahahahahahaha . Euro is way too expensive now ...

We made those bumpers just for fun for us, of course if we made others we donīt use toyota logo...
Thatīs what I always say. Use safty gear always !!! In fact I use protective eye wear, just to hang around my buddies garage, hahahahaha (no kidding).

Rhinoceros if Iīm not wrong ...



Iīm so glad you like it ... Your opinion has a lot of value for us.
Think that for us, Yotatech is like Disneyworld for grown-up 4x4 enthusiasts !!!

 

I would put one of those on my frontier.. to bad shipping would be so expensive!

 

Send me a PM with your adress and I send you the stickers if you want to.

 

Nice work!! I think that the "bash plate" is the plate that goes from the bumper down to your IFS (aka skid plate).