I am trying to find a vendor for a simplistic off road bumper. Does anyone have any info or experience?

 

So you are saying there's nothing....sweet!!! Saves me money...I might have to fab something...

 

Depends on how much money you wanna spend... Reunel, Ranch Hand, Warn... Those are a few that come to mind...

 

make one

http://frederic.woodbridgedata.com/p...rbumper-42.JPG

 

[QUOTE=frederic]http://frederic.woodbridgedata.com/pictures/f350-superbumper-42.JPG[/QUOTE]

Frickin sweet....I was hoping someone would have gotten one and could give some insight into how it worked ie mounting, fitment etc.

But I could weld one if I had time....

 

if you weld one, time is the most important thing to have, there is a few here that have made one, and all of them will tell the same probaly. but if you do build one it will be almost the coolest thing you could do. so draw up a design and get to cutting. I only used a cut off saw, circular saw(of course with a metal blade) and a grinder. and a welder, if you have ?s just ask...if you buy one, broncograveyard sells them also.

 

oh yea i made mine, but no pics, dont know how to post them yet.

 

Making a bumper isn't very difficult, especially if you make the bumper on the truck as I did.

1/4" thick, 4" angle iron for the mounts, 1/4" plate everywhere else. I used angle iron for the mounts so the bumper wasn't hanging off the front bumper mount ears on the frame, and instead extend back about two feet and bolted through existing holes in the side of the frame using... 7/8" grade 8 bolts.

Angle iron on frame:
http://frederic.woodbridgedata.com/p...rbumper-01.jpg

Front plate clamped to angle iron:
http://frederic.woodbridgedata.com/p...rbumper-02.jpg

Back brace across angle iron to support sides (1" square tubing, 1/8" wall):
http://frederic.woodbridgedata.com/p...rbumper-03.jpg

Welding on angled corner plates:
http://frederic.woodbridgedata.com/p...rbumper-04.jpg

Take bumper off and plasma cut holes for isuzu headlights
http://frederic.woodbridgedata.com/p...rbumper-06.jpg

Cut cut cut:
http://frederic.woodbridgedata.com/p...rbumper-11.jpg

Wow, two big holes for isuzu headlights:
http://frederic.woodbridgedata.com/p...rbumper-11.jpg

Mount oversized bumper onto oversized pickup:
http://frederic.woodbridgedata.com/p...rbumper-13.jpg

Weld on sides and top:
http://frederic.woodbridgedata.com/p...rbumper-14.jpg

Grind welding beads:
http://frederic.woodbridgedata.com/p...rbumper-17.jpg

Move bumper back on dolly since it's very heavy (almost 300lbs):
http://frederic.woodbridgedata.com/p...rbumper-21.jpg

Print with anti-rust primer like por15 or something similar.
http://frederic.woodbridgedata.com/p...rbumper-22.jpg

Painted read to match stripes and interior and eventually the rocker panels and door bottoms.
http://frederic.woodbridgedata.com/p...rbumper-25.jpg

And yes, I puked after looking at it. So I painted it black and decided to hack it down slightly and the priocess of "petite bumper" began.
http://frederic.woodbridgedata.com/p...rbumper-28.jpg

I love my sawzall. It's my best friend.
http://frederic.woodbridgedata.com/p...rbumper-29.jpg

The result. Petite bumper is almost there!
http://frederic.woodbridgedata.com/p...rbumper-30.jpg

Not bad. Missing some massive headlights though:
http://frederic.woodbridgedata.com/p...rbumper-31.jpg

First I have to trim some more off the sides, and top, so it doesn't stick out so darn far (originally over a foot). Mark with masking tape and sharpie markers.
http://frederic.woodbridgedata.com/p...rbumper-32.jpg

Cut cut cut.
http://frederic.woodbridgedata.com/p...rbumper-33.jpg

Now that I hacked off enough to move the bumper back, I had to drill new bumper to frame mounting holes as well as hack off some of the 2' long angle iron pieces that slip over the frame.
http://frederic.woodbridgedata.com/p...rbumper-37.jpg

Then, cut out the isuzu headlight holes using a wooden template as a guide, tracing around them with a plasma cutter.
http://frederic.woodbridgedata.com/p...rbumper-38.jpg

Petite bumper with headlight holes:
http://frederic.woodbridgedata.com/p...rbumper-39.jpg

Weld washers to the back of the isuzu headlights to make mounting easy (I was too lazy to comb junkyards for the spring loaded isuzu mounts - easy enough to make out of the pile of junk I always seem to have lying around:
http://frederic.woodbridgedata.com/p...rbumper-40.jpg

Attach lights on the inside of the bumper, tack weld the aircraft nuts while avoiding meltng the plastic inserts, and now using the three allen bolts per light, I can move them around and align them. 15 degrees of swing left and right, and 7 degrees up and down, most of that vertical movement above level.
http://frederic.woodbridgedata.com/p...rbumper-42.jpg

And that's how to build a homemade bumper. Mine was rather boring in shape even with the slightly angled corners, but I wanted something industrial looking with giant headlights. This fits the bill. I plugged the turn signal light bulb holes in the isuzi lamps with a pair of rubber stoppers, and installed two "not for highway use" oversized halogen bulbs, and wired them to a new fuse in the underhood fusebox with a relay, utilizing open spaces for both. I don't remember what the wattage rating was but it's something like 80W low, 120W high or something in that ballpark.

Very, very bright. Being that they are somewhat down low, they're great in the rain and snow. In dry weather I can see about 3-4 times further than with the regular headlights. And no, I don't use them in traffic. Just when the road is completely empty or I'm out in the woods where deer like to prance and jump into truck grilles.

Not that I wanted to test my bumper - for sure I didn't - but a teen in a Honda accord slid through a stop sign right in front of me in a 35mph zone. Because my bumper hit the top 1/3 of the door body, the front and middle pillar, the door and pillars were toast as was the roof and the unibody overall. All the door/trunk/hood gaps were quite torqued after impact (the honda, not my crewcab). Because the road was so icy we hit, and he essentially made an immediate slide away from me down the road spinning into the darkness. Minor injuries which was a relief because his car absorbed pretty much all of the impact so I was quite worried.

Anyway, the point was the bumper faired well. Broke one of the isuzu lights and the metal just underneath it was a bit bent, but the rest of the bumper was AOK aside from massive paint scraping.

And to think I almost used 3/8" plate

 

Some of those picture links are broken Fred...

 

Thanks Chris. I'll check it out tomorrow when I get up. Its probably the same thing that plagues me every time... .jpg versus .JPG. Linux cares about case whereas windows, well, couldn't care less

 

Yes I know this fact all too well. I do all my coding on the command line in Linux and the case sensitivity is pretty annoying. See ya dude.

 

big bumpers are cool, fredreich is right saying he was worried about the person, down here in texas, if a person gets hit with a front end replacement, the impact is way worse, i have a freind that had a ranch hand and was coming home from work and a car carrying 4 teenagers, well they made a uturn in front of him amd they met, killing three, sad sad story, but anyway he is still driving the same truck but with a smaller bumper. i personally like big bumpers, but in his exp, i guess that it made him think otherwise. it still haunts him daily.

 

pictures all work now. Sorry for the inconvienence.

 

Yeah well DON'T LET IT HAPPEN AGAIN!!

 

Debbie Downer....but seriously that is sad...I can't I blame him...accidents suck...

Lucky and by the Man upstairs my wife and I crawled out of totalled Dodge Magnum rental car in the middle of the interstate and not a scratch. Stuff like that makes yo ulive everyday a little more full!!!