Bumper Building

[Dragin]

Decided to finally get around to building these things One, because I figured I could and, Two, I wasnt going to pay the money other companies want for there bumpers. So I thought I would put up some pics of the proess in case any one wants to give this a try themselves. I have about $330.00 in to this project including the cans, jack, and metal. But with the small mistakes of buying stuff that I didnt use or found cheaper after the fact IE I fabricated the reciever hitch from scratch material cost $30.00 but then a blank reciever built for $9.99 so I definatley could have saved some money.

Material is,
Main bumpers are 4x2 stock 3/16 thick
front mount is old front bumper,
rear mounts are 3x2 channel 1/4 thick
Hinge pin is 1 1/2 solid tool steel
lower support for swing out is 3x2x 3/16 thick
All round tubing is 1 3/4 x .130 wall

Thats a brief list of what I used but not all the of the little extra stuff I had laying around in the garage.
Here are some pictures to the point Im at now.

Front

 

[Dragin]

Front continued

 

[Dragin]

Here are the rear bumper pics.

 

[Dragin]

More rear.

 

[Dragin]

The last of the rear pics to this point, I still have to mount the actual tire carrier and the support , then I should be done if I dont decide to do something else.

 

[Jeeper99]

Dragin, you did a heck of a job!! did you bend the tubing for the front yourself? Looks Great!!:beer:

 

[my73cj]

Nice, I wish I had your abilities

 

[Dragin]

Thanks

No I didnt bend the tubing myself, Have a race car fabrication shop that I just give the dimensions of what I want to them and they bend it up for me.

The abilty to do it is not so hard, its the welding that takes a little bit to get the hang of.

But I did get the tire mount on and its ready to be painted. Now a few tabs on the front bumper for lights and I should be done with them and waiting on a winch.

Steve

 

[currupt4130]

I'm sorry, but this looks like a really really bad idea.

Please give me the details on the spindle assembly you have going on here, I really would love to know about it.

 

[Dragin]

I'm sorry, but this looks like a really really bad idea.

Please give me the details on the spindle assembly you have going on here, I really would love to know about it.

Bad Idea? How else would one go about creating a hinge for the tire carrier to swing out IYO? You have different ideas how you would do it because I would like to know? I know everything I do is not perfect but that seemed like the best way to do it.

Details of hinge are as follows:
1 1/2 Tool steel pin 9 inches long, pin passes all the way from top to bottom of bumper via holes drilled by 1 1/2 hole saw, then welded on both sides and then reinforced on bottom by a 2inch by 4 inch long plate welded over bottom. Top section of bumper where tire carrier rides (as well as most of bummper) is tig welded to get max penatration and keep weld build up to minimum. Outer hinge /tire carrier/ is 2 inch OD by 1/4 wall cold rolled tube that the bottom is beveled to fit an 1/8 inch thick O-ring (for grease retension) I can take pics if you need. So those are the details of it.
So how would you have done it differently I would love to know.

Thanks
Steve

 

[redwrangler02]

Man, those look awesome IMO! If you were building and seling, I would buy a set for myself! Looks Great! Wish I had the skills to do something like that.

 

[Dragin]

Man, those look awesome IMO! If you were building and seling, I would buy a set for myself! Looks Great! Wish I had the skills to do something like that.

Thanks man its definatley appreciated. But definatley not looking to build and sell. I use to do that when I ran my old buisness and then found out that flying helicopters is alot easier and more fun. LOL But I would be glad to walk anybody thru the process and the materials used in the process. If you can weld or know someone who can its really not that bad or hard to accomplish.


Steve

 

[currupt4130]

Bad Idea? How else would one go about creating a hinge for the tire carrier to swing out IYO? You have different ideas how you would do it because I would like to know? I know everything I do is not perfect but that seemed like the best way to do it.

Details of hinge are as follows:
1 1/2 Tool steel pin 9 inches long, pin passes all the way from top to bottom of bumper via holes drilled by 1 1/2 hole saw, then welded on both sides and then reinforced on bottom by a 2inch by 4 inch long plate welded over bottom. Top section of bumper where tire carrier rides (as well as most of bummper) is tig welded to get max penatration and keep weld build up to minimum. Outer hinge /tire carrier/ is 2 inch OD by 1/4 wall cold rolled tube that the bottom is beveled to fit an 1/8 inch thick O-ring (for grease retension) I can take pics if you need. So those are the details of it.
So how would you have done it differently I would love to know.

Thanks
Steve

I don't doubt that it's beefy. I would have gone with a trailer spindle set up though, something with bearings. I don't care if you have an o ring on that thing or not, eventually grit and gunk is going to build up in there and cause it to be a PITA to operate.

I have a buddy who builds bumpers constantly, and what he actually does is to take a super beefy spindle and turn it down to fit in the 2x4 tubing similar to what you have there. There are some spindles that have a body that fits in the tube to start with, and a lot of people use that. I'm sorry, I didn't mean to come off harsh but I've seen that set up before and it eventually either fails or becomes ridiculous to use.

This is one of his, if I find a picture of the spindle set up I'll post that too.

Here's one by AtoZ fab, my buddy's are way beefier. He uses a bigger spindle and turns down the body that goes into the 2x4 tube.

 

[Jeeper99]

I think you did a great job! I for one, had never thought about the spindel idea. Dragin, just a thought, but you might get someone to TIG you a small T Bar on that Tension bolt so you can tighten or loosen by hand and not have to use a wrench. I did that on a couple of bolts on my car and it worked great.

 

[Dragin]

I considered using a bearing set up, see pics below of the sealed bearing, not open trailer type bearings, setup I made for another application. Could have used it very easily instead of the purchasing new material. But in the 20 some years I have been welding and fabricating the tight tollerance steel steel fit has proven to last longer than the bearing route in applications such as these.
Example, I use to fab many different type of control arms for race applications in Mustang and Camaros etc, A solid control arm utilized a rod end on the forward chassis end and a metal to metal tight tolerance sleave arangment on the axle end, consisting of 3/4 Od x1/2 id inner sleave free floating and a 1 inch OD x.760 outer sleave. No orings to keep dirt out etc, but after 1000s of hard launches at race tracks with slicks and thousands of street miles, still to this day No failures. And this is a working suspension part that move as the suspension moves. Same concept different size, take a regular everyday rod end, helm joint or whatever you want to call it, same concept as well, tight metal/metal fit used by race cars, mud trucks,rock crawlers for years and years, the only exception being the more expensive teflon line rod ends that have a thin layer of teflon linning. Heck take a modern day engine, the engine bearings are not trailer style or needle bearings but a tight tolerance fit only seperated by presurized oil. I even had to take the needle bearings out of the gears in my transfer case when I did the SYE conversion in favor of a tolerance fit. All of the above mentioned are also rapidly moving of revolving parts the swing away spare tire carrier is not frequently moved, rotated 360 degrees etc.
Now dirt and water etc getting in there past the o-ring and causing it to fail is No different than dirt/water etc getting in you U-joints, Ball joints, tie rod ends, or trailer wheel bearings because you have to back into the water to get your boat off. They are all filled with grease (as is my hinge pin/assembly) and if not properly taken care of, regreased from time to time or repacked each year they will fail, also all above examples see alot more movement then a swing out spare tire mount.

I can and will also gaurantee that the bumper and swing out hinge and pin will easily out last the jeep is mounted too and will not get any more difficult to swing out of the way.

 

[Dragin]

I think you did a great job! I for one, had never thought about the spindel idea. Dragin, just a thought, but you might get someone to TIG you a small T Bar on that Tension bolt so you can tighten or loosen by hand and not have to use a wrench. I did that on a couple of bolts on my car and it worked great.

Thanks man, I thought about that but with the jam nut tightened you cant move the bolt anyways so your going to need a wrench regard less.
Thanks again
Steve

 

[currupt4130]

I beg to differ on the spindle, I've seen it happen before. Dragging your rig through muddy, dusty, dirty trails is a lot different from backing a boat trailer down a boat ramp. But none the less your work is pretty good.