Box Rocket
SILVER Star
X2 Love that rear bumper!
The bumper was quite an evolution but ended up a pretty sweet setup. It started out with just the main rear channel made from some square tubing. It had the uprights at the corners that held some super simple hinges. This was before the days of commonly using spindles. The upright tubes were originally intended to allow for a rear rack to be dropped in from above and sit above the spare tire. I never ended up using it that way. The simple hinge setup was nice because lower hinge could easily be undone and then the whole tire carrier could lift off. Only took a couple minutes to remove the tire carrier if I wanted to.
The tire carrier was originally built from some 1" square tubing that was a little weak. So there was some flex in the carrier since it spanned the whole rear of the truck and the uprights for the hinge/latch flexed a little too.
Then I did this..........

Obviously this was before the rebuild but the tire carrier kept me from going over backwards but cracked the swingout in the process. So I rebuilt it using some larger thicker wall square tubing and added the cooler rack. Also added the side wings running forward to the wheel wells with a little more square tubing to match the main channel. I wanted to control the flex of the tire carrier and the best way was to support the hinge/latch uprights better. I didn't want to have it tied to the body at all so we used the SOLID 3/4" cold rolled round stock that you see there. When we did that the thought was purely around eliminating flex in the tire carrier, but those ended up being one of the best body protection mods on the entire truck. I can't tell you how many times I would have munched the rear corners of the truck if I hadn't had those. I even had the entire weight of the truck resting on the passenger side rear corner with both front tires in the air on the Rubicon. I never would have thought that little 3/4" rod would take so much abuse but it kept me from rolling the truck that day.
So I guess what I've saying is it started out as something really simple but a few random changes to it made it super functional. Too bad I don't have the truck anymore but I have another 40 project in the works and will probably do something very similar with the rear bumper.
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