SteveRoche's front bumper

[steveroche]

So after a lot of deliberation on which style of bumper i wanted to get for the front, steel plate or tube...I decided on a little of both. I wanted a place to hard mount the winch to the front while also having some steel tubing wrapping the front end for good front end coverage from brush and small trees..etc. I looked through a lot of different designs and sort of used Teebes jk bumper as an idea starter. I came up with something along the lines of this very rough paint sketch....

bumper.jpg

(77.99 KiB) Downloaded 626 times

I am having Mike putting the finishing touches on the centerpiece/winch mount of the bumper and then I will finish off the welding and throw on the tubing...here is the progress thus far.

There will also be a fair lead mount on the front and two shackle mounts on it as well.

I just wanted to get this out there before I get it from Mike and start putting the tubing on to see if anyone had any more suggestions about designs.

I can't wait to get this all finished up with skids and front bumper i will finally be more confident when going through the rough terrain on some of the trails i go through. Thanks to mike for the help with everything, can't wait to get it and test her out!

[Trail X]

Base looks good.

What's with the height of that central hoop?

[steveroche]

It won't be as high as pictured, probably just to the tip of the hood or top of the headlights heightwise. Just like on Teebes or fishticks bumpers.

[Trail X]

Are you showing that it will tie into sliders?

[steveroche]

No, using just paint i couldn't really get much detail out of that picture as i wanted. The top horizontal bar will wrap around and end at the wheel well opening, and the bottom one will curve up and tie into it just after the end of the headlights. When i get sliders next month I may tie them into the sliders as a fender protector/flare....but who knows

[bartonmd]

Couple more from last night...

[steveroche]

Getting the winch in the mail today. All the pieces of the puzzle are ready, it gets better every time i look at it haha

[snowmirage]

Looking good man, cant wait to see the progress as it comes together! Please keep the pictures coming I think the only thing better than seeing the finished project is seeing detailed progress of the journey it took to get there

Once I finish this intership and get settled down some place with a FT job again I will definitively be buying myself a welder and doing something similar.

[bartonmd]

Bumper starter is done, and I'm finishing up the skids tonight, and they'll all get put on a pallet tomorrow, to ship out on Friday!

[steveroche]

I have now lost all concentration while at work or while out with friends. All i think about is how awesome the bumper will look like when its all finished...

The skids are most definitely going to be a big help as well, yesterday i went out with 2 friends, one in a cherokee the other a 4door wrangler, they were runnin through mud pits and driving over small 2in trees that were in the path but i had to sneak around because i don't want to mess up my radiator. I also need to relocate the breather tubes...otherwise i would have gone through the mudpits. Kinda glad i didn't go through the big one though, the cherokee got stuck and bogged down in the water and his exhaust was making a nice glug glug glug sound since it was under water. Thankfully it didn't stall though. One more reason the winch will come in handy, took us an hour to get him out he was so stuck.

[bartonmd]

Yeah, it turned out pretty decent, I think! Because of having the plasma, I was able to easily do the cutout and have the full piece for the fairlead, instead of just putting a couple tabs up there with holes in them...

Yeah, you'll be really happy with the skids!

Thanks,
Mike

[steveroche]

Look what came in the mail today!
New Smittybilt XRC-10 Winch
Smittybilt Shackles
Winch cover

Next week I will have some updated pics with some tube bending, time to take my first crack at that

[bartonmd]

Palletted up last night, and shipping out today...

Mike

[HARDTRAILZ]

Saw it last night. Definitely has a good base to add some tubes to. Could be really nice.

[steveroche]

I can't wait to finish it up. I probably won't be working on Tuesday, i'll be sitting out on the front steps waiting for the delivery truck to come haha

[bartonmd]

[steveroche]

Got the pallet today!
Time to finish up the rest of the welding on the bumper and get some tubing thrown on there...
Hoping to have a completion date of this coming Sunday.
Getting the tubing bender tonight from a friend...i hope
The original person i had lined up to do the welding is now sunk with side jobs so he is off the list...I'm now frantically sending out messages to all my friends who i know that have a powerful enough welder to tackle this with me this week.

Pics soon!

[bartonmd]

Awesome! Thanks, and look forward to seeing how this turns out!

Mike

[steveroche]

So quick update:

spent a chunk of today after work finishing the welding of the whole bumper centerpiece. I will be buying another 10ft section of 1.5id blackpipe today and if all goes as planned, the bumper should be welded, painted and will be indestructible.

[bartonmd]

Cool!

... but NOTHING is indestructible...

Mike