Bumper-ish build (1 Viewer)

[hotdiggitydamn]

Got a used winch but need somewhere to mount it to. Winch is a Warm M12k that came with Synthetic line, safety thimble, aluminum fairlead, and a mount of some sort that won’t fit my LX470 hence the build/modification.

My goal was to mount this under the bumper and I could but I wanted a bit of extra clearance behind the winch should I need it. 3/4” will do it. If I need more than that the vehicle will likely be totaled anyways. After a few mockups it seems retaining the stock bumper supports would be more work than anything else really so throwing caution to the wind I chopped them off. I scored 90% through the welds with a grinder and cutting disk then used a chisel and hammer to break through the welds. I left the welds proud for now and will grind further if needed.

The next hardest thing was finding materials that would be of a close enough dimension so I won’t have to build it entirely out of plate. I found a “3 X 6” 1/4 wall was nearly perfect. 33 bucks for 2 feet at some random place I drove by out at work one day. I made a cardboard template and cut it out.

 

[hotdiggitydamn]

I made sure to radius all my cuts by first drilling my corners to 1/2” then cutting to those holes. I did my mathing right but still looks funky because I retained some of the side wall and did not take this into effect when calculating my placement of these holes. Oh well thats why I’m an amateur! I wanted this mount to fully encompass the frame rail on all sides as I’m just a little worried about hard, very angular pulls. Perhaps it’s overkill but it’s the route I took regardless. The frame material is SOOOO thin on the truck!
Anyways cut up and welded back! I’m rusty on my TIG and my breaker won’t tolerate too many amps but I slightly beveled the material and used 151amps, manual pulse, 1/16 tungsten, 1/16 ER70S2 filler, #7 cup, 17-18 CFH. I tried to consistently just barely burn in the edge. My weave passes were a disaster mostly due to me but also my breaker kept tripping. I’ll address that either in final weld up or perhaps a strengthening plate over the side of the mount. I’ll flush that out as I go. Pretty happy thus far. I just need more practice and maybe less coffee too!

 

[neckbone]

Those are some sexy welds. Is that a hobby or career?

 

[hotdiggitydamn]

Those are some sexy welds. Is that a hobby or career?

Thanks. Pretty don’t mean strong and hopefully they are strong. Lol. Very much an amateur!

 

[ClassyJalopy]

I made sure to radius all my cuts by first drilling my corners to 1/2” then cutting to those holes. I did my mathing right but still looks funky because I retained some of the side wall and did not take this into effect when calculating my placement of these holes. Oh well thats why I’m an amateur! I wanted this mount to fully encompass the frame rail on all sides as I’m just a little worried about hard, very angular pulls. Perhaps it’s overkill but it’s the route I took regardless. The frame material is SOOOO thin on the truck!
Anyways cut up and welded back! I’m rusty on my TIG and my breaker won’t tolerate too many amps but I slightly beveled the material and used 151amps, manual pulse, 1/16 tungsten, 1/16 ER70S2 filler, #7 cup, 17-18 CFH. I tried to consistently just barely burn in the edge. My weave passes were a disaster mostly due to me but also my breaker kept tripping. I’ll address that either in final weld up or perhaps a strengthening plate over the side of the mount. I’ll flush that out as I go. Pretty happy thus far. I just need more practice and maybe less coffee too!

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Hot Diggity Damn! I mean great job - them are some of the best looking welds!

 

[Kabanstva]

Your amateur welds look better than 8/10 professional welds that I’ve seen. No joke.

 

[hotdiggitydamn]

Ok kept on a truckin. I ended up getting everything mocked up and tacked up. About 6 total tacks inside and out. It was my first time welding on a vehicle with electronics and I was honestly nervous. I just disconnected both battery terminals and insulated them. I kept my ground close and all was well. It was windy hence the very professional looking wind blocks. This honestly took a lot longer than you would think as I kept taking it on and off to get the fit correct. Winch went on and off a few times as well.
The rest of the night well into the dark was spent relocating my blinker bulb into the parking light. I ended up cutting and gluing the blinker socket onto the parking light housing. I made a quick post about that as well. I also tidied a lot of wiring, washer fluid lines, a relay, etc into the fender instead of under the bumper. I taped up all the unused connectors and labeled them for future use. I wrapped all the cabling better with several wraps all the way up to the connector to help keep dirt out as well as protect a bit from chafing.

 

[hotdiggitydamn]

And then today I welded it up. I did OK but kinda had the shakes for some reason. I did as much left handed welding as possible for practice so it was probably just nerves. I ran out of argon about 90% through so did the last few with MIG. With the TIG was fun because I had a few places where I had or wanted to fill in some pretty large holes so that was good practice. I did that after most the other welding was done so aesthetically you can see it but I figured that was likely the best order from a functional stand point.
I also converted my other parking light and was able to further tuck away the wiring into the fender. All in all a pretty good after work session considering the interruptions. Now it starts to look like something!

 

[hotdiggitydamn]

More pics. The “bumper” sticks out exactly as far as the stock bumper which is what I was roughly after.

 

[hotdiggitydamn]

A few more showing the wires tucked back and the fender support I unbolted to squeeze the wires past. At some point I’ll do something about that washer fluid reservoir but I need this working by Thursday when I go camping next. I’ll just stick to rebuilding and wiring the winch for now. I’m sure Slee or someone makes a small reservoir.

I might make some bolt on wings as there is plenty of surface to mount to. That’s all for now Folks!

 

[hotdiggitydamn]

Ok so starting this back up after getting a tubing bender and notcher and repairing my air compressor. I decided to start this 3 days before a week long trip with the truck so probably not the smartest.

Main hoop is 1.75 .120 wall 4130. So far only two support tubes but more to come later. Those are 1.75 .090 wall 4130.

I did not have enough tube to make practice bends but going slow and practicing good gestimation and repeatability yielded good results for the main hoop bends. I used about 9.5 feet for this main hoop. The hardest part by far was not the notches on the support tubes but the flat miter cut as it was a compound cut. Lots of hand fitting with a grinder!

Then I welded it up. I honestly had some difficulty as I was not always able to get comfortable or even get the bumper on my “work bench” lol. My setup is so ghetto! Also I struggled to get good shielding in certain positions especially when the wind would blow. I believe it’s time for a gas lens setup. All welding was done with a 3/32 electrode, 5 or 7 cup, and 1/16 ER70S2 filler. Super basic. Usually flowing 18 cfm but as much as 25. Definitely a challenge to get good consistent looking welds when filling largish gaps as you can see below.

 

[hotdiggitydamn]

More pics.

These caps were a much thinner material just for fun and as expected it was way hard not being able to prop on anything. If I would have kept letting it cool it would have turned out better as the first 5 or so dabs looked good and defined, shinny, etc. the rest did not due to heat soak. Good practice either way and it was going to be ground smooth afterwards anyways.

Then chopped up the winch remote box bracket and welded that on. I was really in a hurry at this point as I was leaving the next morning for a 10 hour drive. I short cut grinding the paint back and kinda caught it on fire. All’s well if ends well. Lol

Then mount a quick temporary coat of raptor liner followed by a quick trip to the lathe to make a piece to fill in the winch tie bar. This was previously chopped down to mount the winch control box so now I had to make a spacer to fill that back in. New tools from Mesa Tools make quick work of it and a beautiful surface finish at the fastest feed rate my lathe will run! I LOVE using my lathe!!!!

 

[hotdiggitydamn]

Sorry for the crappy pictures but I was busy trying to pack for the beach! I’ll have to grind/blast it down to work on it more moving forward but at least I feel less naked now. It actually worked awesome to hang wet clothes on too!

 

[h8redlights]

GOOD LORD..... I just saw this post for the first time! Dam those welds you did are amazin! Good for you! That’s fricken awesome!

 

[hotdiggitydamn]

GOOD LORD..... I just saw this post for the first time! Dam those welds you did are amazin! Good for you! That’s fricken awesome!

Haha thanks. Still learning but having fun screwing around in my garage.

 

[1sar39]

You got skills, man! Great job! Its cool to see stuff fabricated at home. I struggled a bit when notching the tubes for my bumper and ordered one of these Tube & Pipe Notching Tracers, Get the perfect notch first try! — Centurial Inc - https://www.centurialinc.com/tube-coping-tools/individual-tool. Worked pretty good and cut down on bad cuts.

 

[hotdiggitydamn]

You got skills, man! Great job! Its cool to see stuff fabricated at home. I struggled a bit when notching the tubes for my bumper and ordered one of these Tube & Pipe Notching Tracers, Get the perfect notch first try! — Centurial Inc - https://www.centurialinc.com/tube-coping-tools/individual-tool. Worked pretty good and cut down on bad cuts.

Hey thanks for info! That looks like just the thing I need! I’ll scroll through your post to. check out this bumper of yours. Sounds like it was a tube bumper as well.