I took off both my bumpers off my 93 F350, just to see how they mount, expecting the bolts to snap. Amazingly enough, they didn't.

Whats interesting, is the front frame horns extend into the bumper, and it mounts with two angle irons, with four bolts.

What a feat in engineering!

I've been thinking about making my own bumpers, which stemmed from an earlier thread here that making your own bumpers open the truck owner to legal liabilities.

I checked with my insurance company, and they stated that they couldn't care less, as long as I comply with the bumper height laws of the state I live in. So if they are willing to insure me with a 3/8" thick Mig welded angled bumper, then so be it.

I'm going to do the back bumper first since its not contoured, essentially its a long rectangle with a slight inlay under the tailgate. Not to difficult to do. I'm going to "picture frame" the license plate on one side, and put thick square tubing in the center facing out for a class IV hitch. Of course with the appropriate bracing. I have a hitch for a Ford, that doesn't fit my frame rails, so I'll copy that design and integrate the hitch into the bumper.

I made a front bumper out of cardboard and electrical tape, just to make some templates for the individual pieces. Totally doable.

Anyway, just boring muttering....

 

Sounds like a great project! Very doable indeed. I'm sure you'll have fun with it. Cool idea making the bumper a frame mount reciever hitch too. Could make that reciever tube extra long and tie it into the frame at the crossmember benind the rear axle, if you don't have a spare under there...

I started building a heavy duty front bumper to fit under the stock bumper, so I have the best of both worlds, good looks w/ chrome, and heavy duty protection. So far I haven't finished it, but will sometime when I get around to it...

It uses a 7.5x5x0.25 tube as the main section with 1/4x6 flat plate for mounting and triangulated at the ends for the curve of the stock bumper. I accidentally welded one of the mounting plates a 1/4" too far in and it doesn't fit around the frame, that's why It's not done, I've been too lazy to grind it off and re-weld it. This bumper will extend the stock bumper about 4-6 inches (can't remember what the exact measurement turned out to be after I drilled the mounting holes) further forward than stock and I may tie it into a front reciever hitch in the future. The stock bumper mounts to the rectangular tube with some tabs I welded on. Basically, I'm throwing in the towel on the stock bumper being any good for impact protection and using it as a cover face for the real bumper beneath. Mine is actually worse than stock, it's a cheap aftermarket lookalike.

I was going to build a rear bumper for it too, but decided to beef up the stock chrome one instead, since it looks so nice. I welded a 2x2x0.25 tube accross the back of it and gusseted it to the bumper center section and frame mounts. It also serves as my rear camper tie down point with smaller tubes that slide into it on each side with tabs welded on them for attatching the turnbuckles. They extend out for when the camper is on and slide in when the camper is off. It's not as beefy as something I would have made myself but I think it will do an ok job of protecting the truck in a small crash.

Anyways, have fun with the project, sorry about the long post.

 

I hear ya about getting around to it. I myself have too many projects going on. Building a recording studio in my house, building a twin-turbo 500 stroker, building a GRM car for next year, redoing the electrical in my house, building an engine run stand which is almost done, blah blah blah.

BTW, when I screw bracket locations up, I torch them off, its much easier than grinding endlessly

(beavis)FIRE! FIRE!(/beavis)

I do have a spare tire, but part of my rear bumper design is to weld in a 2" square tube vertically, and attach a large bracket that goes across the tailgate to put the spare on, much like a lot of the offroaders do. I need to do this for two reasons... first to tie the hitch bumper further back like you suggest, and second, to fit significantly larger fuel tank in the back. Leaning towards a 30-45 gallon bronco tank quite honestly.

My front bumper is chrome, but the new one is going to be red or white, depending on my mood when I get to the painting stage. My truck is white with red pinstripes, but since I have a little R&R to do across the bottom of the truck I was thinking of making 6" or so from the bottom red, matching the pinstripes. The bumpers could then be red also. I'll worry about that later. My rear bumper was chrome, but it got so ugly that I sand blasted it and painted it white. Much easier to touch up with a spray can after a junkyard visit

See, I actually step on my step bumper

 

SoCal,

here is an example of the carrier I'm going to build, on a homemade step bumper.

I'd use my existing bumper, except its a little warped from several idiots who enjoyed rear ending me at a stop light.

http://www.off-road.com/toyota/reviews/stoutbumper/

And here is a similar idea to mine regarding the front bumper:

http://www.erikburrows.com/index.php...mper+Version+2

Specifically this picture:
http://www.erikburrows.com/index.php?image=219

I like the smooth lines in the front, and will be flush mounting two 90 (I think) caprice headlights and bracketry, into the bumper as driving lights.

Mine will stick out quite a bit further, to protect the sheet metal of the truck, of course.

And maybe this will be good incentive to dig out the Navigator clip and see if I can fit that onto the truck as well. Got the whole thing at a PA junkyard that had a one day, dollar day sale. $20 cover, all parts a buck. Took the fenders, supports, radiator, radiator supports, grille, trim, lights, hood, hinges, cowling, everything but the bumper since it was missing. Not a bad expenditure for $17 Of course all thats buried in the back of the garage.

 

Frederic,

I like the rack on that Toyota pickup. I've been thinking of building something similar to that for the Bronco ('69) to get the spare out of the bed and be able to carry a gas can or two, since my dual tanks together only total 20 gallons. My only concern is blocking the view of the taillights or getting in the way of the tailgate, without having it stick out too much to the outside of the body. But that project is far off in the future, as the Bronco needs other things more than a new rack....

I like the bumper on the Range Rover, looks real nice. Seems like with thick enough steel, a winch could be mounted behind it too.

On the step bumper, I found that on mine, painting the top of it with roll-on bedliner works pretty good as a non-slip surface. The slippery chrome top on mine was an accident waiting to happen, especially when wet.

I don't know what a Navigator looks like in the front, I guess alot like an Expedition. Good luck with the front clip change.

 

Blocking the taillight is a concern I had, however the easy solution to it is to install two taillights into the bumper itself. I checked with my local DMV and they didn't have a problem with that as long as the lenses are DOT certified. So the flush-mount LED commuter bus taillights I have will be acceptable They are flat, and have a lip to screw to the flat surface of the bumper, so the hardest part is cutting out a rectangular hole. I wanted a plasma cutter anyway

The Navigator looks like this:


THe problem i see is the nose slopes, like the F150 series, where as my truck is very square in the front, though not as square as the earlier late 80's body style. So the radiator supports and the side supports will have to be changed a bit also. I have those pieces from the Lincoln clip, so my worse case is to lop things down with a sawzall or a plasma cutter (can you tell i really want one?) and weld this all up, and bolt the fenders is. I did extensive measuring, I can easily fit a 460 under this clip, if I move the radiator 2" lower, along with the powerstroker intercooler once I put that in. My radiator support area and side attachment points are a little rusty anyway, so I'll be killing two birds with one stone, so to speak.

 

Frederic, Amen on the plasma cutter. I've wanted one for years... someday I will spend the money and get one... That looks like a big job mating that Navigator clip to the early truck and the sheetmetal shape on the side is totally different. I guess with some hammering and filler a transition could be made to look descent. Good luck with it. Good idea on the tail lights.

 

While my paint was drying on my engine stand yesterday, I yanked the navigator clip in pieces, and held them up to see how "off" they are. At the doors, the fenders curve more than my doors do, but all in all not too bad. I should be able to plasma cut some metal fill in the gap, mig weld it from behind, and skim with a little filler. Just have to figure out how to do a rolled edge... never done one before.

On the nose side, the clip slopes more than the truck, and thats going to be little tricky, but since the clip came torched at the firewall, I have supports so its a matter of welding and cutting and getting it to fit right, then weld the very front of the navigator supports to the F350 supports, somewhere over the wheel well.

The hood attaches entirely differently, so I'll have to do some kind of bracking to support the F350 hinges on the navigator hood - this way I don't have to hack up my firewall in addition to all this work.

I put everything back in the garage though, I'm going to hold off for a little while until my buddy Ray has some free time to come down here for a weekend. He's a talented body shop guy and I'd like him to take a look at this before I start cutting, torching, and welding.