Klaus,
Just to clarify, that is not a BIOR fuel carrier in the pictures?
Yes it is a BIOR Powder coated satin black to match everything else.
The gas struts are great. 99% of the time, they make opening the swing outs almost automatic. There were a few times when we were parked severely off camber where they didn't hold the swing outs open. Make sure you use the correct on on the correct side. Otherwise you'll have a really hard to close gas can carrier.
The stuts pop on and off with two little clips. So between the struts, popping off the dust cap and undoing one big castle nut, you can remove the swing outs in a minute or two.
Mike's welds are much better than they look on his website. I think the bumpers on his website are techinically prototypes.
Sorry it's a bit dirty:
Semi-capped wheel wells. They add strength and look a little more finished but make installation trickier. Cleaning hasn't been a problem. There's still plenty of room for a pressure washer. What is dumb, is that the bumper is about a 1/2" too short. If it really deflected here, it'd hit the pinch weld. Didn't have any issues with it in moab though.
These latches are great. Better than the ones Slee uses. They feature a catch for an extra layer of insurance. Even if the latch somehow rattled loose. The catch would stop it from opening. As would the spring pin.
Half inch steel recovery points. Trailer hitch with gussetting and chain anchors. His welds are much better than the ones on his website.
Spare spindle cover. This thing is solid. It's the actual spindle sleeve the arms are welded to. Features a grease zerk. Also notice the welded stopper on the bumper. That, combined with the gas strut, stop the swing outs from opening too far.
Mike is right. Satin powdercoating scratches much more easily. But it also looks way better IMHO, touches up easily with Rustoleum Satin paint and matched all the other accessories on your truck.
Upgraded adjustable tire carrier. The tire carrying part of this can be removed completely if you wanted to run the spare in the oem location and use the swing out for rotopax or something else since it's pre slotted for bolts.
I had him add an antenna mount for a light. But it's not real usable as an antenna mount because the hi-lift is right above it. The adjustable tire carrier is tighter to the liftgate.
For those wanting the tire to not block their visibility, you can mount the tire super low. Even at its height position it's still lower than Slee's spare tire and doesn't block as much visibility. That being said, the BIOR adjustable tire carrier need to be slightly taller. The lower mounting holes would be way too low with anything but a tiny tire. The way it's mounted now, it could move up one slot or down six slots.
You can see the license plate light bracket and strut here. I haven't installed the supplied light yet. The strut is great. It is strong enough to open itself.
The Hi-lift base mount was upgraded so it doesn't jiggle around. Or whatever the problem with the old one was.
You can also see the stopper tabs on the spindle. Just like the latch redundancy, the welded stoppers, strut and the bumper itself all prevent the swing outs from ever swinging into the body of the truck.
The license plate attaches with self tapping screws into predrilled holes. Instead, I tapped the holes to 1/4-20 and used stainless steel bolts with stainless steel washers between the plate and bumper.
You can see the adjustable backspacing on the tire carrier here. It used three grade-8 bolts. The design seems pretty strong.
There is a lip behind the tailgate with a notch for the oem spare tire pulley tool.
The trailer hitch sticks out farther than the Slee bumper because the entire bumper is a few inches shorter than the Slee. That's also why the bottom edge isn't angled like the Slee. The BIOR is flush up against the rear crossmember for the smallest overhang possible without cutting off the rear crossmember.
The swing outs slide onto that plastic striker plate when closed. The spring-loaded pins secure into the two 3/8" holes on either side of the striker plate. So to open the bumper, I pull in the safety latch, undo the large red handle, then pull up on the spring-loaded pin.
If you have to street park like me, you might want to have the spare tire on the driverside instead.
. But it does probably add some rigidity
. This bumper was part of the group buy. The only thing Mike cares about with the group buy is that they are the same type of bumper (high clearance vs. bolt-on). Other then that you can customize the bumper configuration however you want.
