Interesting 'Responder' ostensibly OEM Toyota bull bar (1 Viewer)

[John Young]

It's been a minute since I posted anything here on the 100 Series forum. I may have mentioned that when I shipped the Model 77 to the US I took the opportunity to put in the back an OEM bull bar for the 1998 model 100 'Dhanno' that I had shipped to the US a year earlier. I've finally gotten around to taking a look at it in more detail, partly because I put it aside when a friend of my older boy managed to run into it while it was on the floor of the garage and bent a mounting bracket. I've now got a bit of time and thought I'd see what can be done. Here's a photo:

Below you can see the damage done by a friend of my older boy:

It seems to be all aluminum. I had been thinking that I would paint the welded pipe section with bed liner and polish the large flat surfaces. I was delighted to find that all the various bits seem to just bolt together. Six 18 mm nuts and the bull bar portion came off.

The parts seem quite high quality and when googling I found a press release which did mention 'Responder' so I'm thinking this actually may be OEM Toyota.

I thought some of you might get a kick out of this.

 

[John Young]

Here are a couple more photos:

 

[roma042987]

That is cool!

 

[bluesquirrel]

Pretty cool. From the pre-bent sections, it looks like it's integrated into the crash design too.

 

[bentonrover]

Awesome

 

[badlander]

A guy at our local yacht club has one on his 100. He told me he had it shippied from Austrailia. He said shipping cost him an arm and a leg.....

 

[John Young]

A guy at our local yacht club has one on his 100. He told me he had it shippied from Austrailia. He said shipping cost him an arm and a leg.....

That is interesting, BL. I bought this because it was at the scrap yard the price was right, was made of aluminium and could be modified for my winch--and I incidentally had a truck being shipped to the US so I could throw it in the back.

Did the guy you know who had one shipped say anything else about the bull bar? Why did he go to the trouble of shipping this rather than say, buying one of the many aftermarket options, like one of the ARB products?

 

[95Fantasma80]

Well that's cool!

how much did that cost?

here is a link i found with a picture.

LC 100 series OEM Toyota Alloy Winch Bar

I just purchased a 2005 LC100 GXL with this exact bar on it It has a 12 or 13mm Alloy plate to mount a winch on. I just wondered if anyone knew what rated winch i can fit? Is it a max of 9000lb? What if i mount a 11000lb and just be careful?...

www.exploroz.com

 

[John Young]

Looking back, I posted about buying the bumper in April 2019. I can't quite remember but I'm sure it was somewhere in the range of 800 to 1200 AED or 225 to 325 USD. I liked the way it looked on a half-cut 100 at the scrap yard. I had no idea that it could come apart the way it does:

I'm going to try polishing rather than painting as that seems to be the consensus from the family. I also will repaint the plastic with flexible black paint to dress that up. Then there will be some cutting to accommodate the winch on the tan truck.

The existing plastic bumper is very much a temporary thing. I just had the guys hack it when we put the Asin factory winch in.

At the moment it looks like I will have to cut all the way to the bottom of the main part of the bumper, but I won't know for sure before I get the old one off and start doing some measuring.

 

[badlander]

Did the guy you know who had one shipped say anything else about the bull bar? Why did he go to the trouble of shipping this rather than say, buying one of the many aftermarket options, like one of the ARB products?
[/QUOTE]

Been a year since I took those pics and haven't seen him since. I think I remember him saying he purchased it overseas and had it shipped here. I guess he just liked the way it looked.
It is a good looking bumper and it being factory Toyota, and aluminum, makes it kind of unique and cool, in my opinion.

 

[Kabanstva]

What bumper is this?

2004 Lexus LX470 - Pickles

Automatic, 8 Cyl, Petrol, Odometer Not Visible, Black, Rego.No.:NP(TBEARR), WOVR N/A, GST Included in Sale Price

www.pickles.com.au

Looks like an LX version of the oem bullbar posted above.

 

[jeffkukuruda]

Well now I know what I want on my 100. It looks so factory and aluminum weight is a bonus. Guess I can start dreaming / scouring the internet. I know you got it at a scrap yard but it’s a shame you’re going to cut it up! Look forward to seeing it done.

thank you for sharing.

 

[John Young]

Well now I know what I want on my 100. It looks so factory and aluminum weight is a bonus. Guess I can start dreaming / scouring the internet. I know you got it at a scrap yard but it’s a shame you’re going to cut it up! Look forward to seeing it done.

thank you for sharing.

I will try not to butcher too bad, Jeff. I hope only to cut the main part of the bumper in the flat area of the metal, and in which case it could be filled back in by some future owner. I've started experimenting with polishing on a fixed buffing wheel and rapidly concluded that it would not do, so my son and I went out and found an old 7 inch Milwaukee angle grinder, and we had to refurbish it, if course!

 

[hoser]

Been a year since I took those pics and haven't seen him since. I think I remember him saying he purchased it overseas and had it shipped here. I guess he just liked the way it looked.
It is a good looking bumper and it being factory Toyota, and aluminum, makes it kind of unique and cool, in my opinion.

Not exactly factory... but rather only available as an option for Toyota Australia. The bumper was commissioned by TJM. It has some resemblance to their existing offerings, at the time.

 

[John Young]

Been having some fun here in Northern Virginia. Accidentally went to Costco in DC on Friday as they are the only one that is able to sell booze and my supply of medicinal alcohol was running low. Was there when it opened and within a few minutes the checkout lines stretched from the front of the store to the very back:

Eventually, sometime in the afternoon I got home and caught my breath. Time to start on the bumper--first a pressure wash with some help from my older boy, then back from work.

Yesterday we started the polishing process with some varied success.

 

[John Young]

The problem is that the bumper, while in good shape, has suffered 20 years of banging around so there are big and small scratches. We can get a mirror finish but the scratches look pretty unsightly.

Here's where we got pretty close to mirror with standard paste aluminum polish:

You can see the persistent scratches.
Here's a part where we used the equivalent of scotchbrite and then a sisal wheel with green polishing compound on our restored gigantic angle grinder, and finally paste polish with a motorized polishing pad:

You can see it is a bit dull. I knew what was going on. The scotchbrite was great to remove scratches, but the scratches it left were too big for the polish to finish off, even with a sisal pad and green buffing compound.

We went of to Home Despot in search of 800, 1000, 1500, etc grit sandpaper but these days Home Despot is pretty useless for anything not really, really basic. And they had nothing finer than 220 grit if you can believe that, in an 8 hole 5 inch orbital pattern. So back home to order on Amazon. The supplies won't come until monday to give this another go.

 

[Kabanstva]

View attachment 2239307
The problem is that the bumper, while in good shape, has suffered 20 years of banging around so there are big and small scratches. We can get a mirror finish but the scratches look pretty unsightly.
View attachment 2239309
Here's where we got pretty close to mirror with standard paste aluminum polish:
View attachment 2239313
You can see the persistent scratches.
Here's a part where we used the equivalent of scotchbrite and then a sisal wheel with green polishing compound on our restored gigantic angle grinder, and finally paste polish with a motorized polishing pad:
View attachment 2239315
You can see it is a bit dull. I knew what was going on. The scotchbrite was great to remove scratches, but the scratches it left were too big for the polish to finish off, even with a sisal pad and green buffing compound.

We went of to Home Despot in search of 800, 1000, 1500, etc grit sandpaper but these days Home Despot is pretty useless for anything not really, really basic. And they had nothing finer than 220 grit if you can believe that, in an 8 hole 5 inch orbital pattern. So back home to order on Amazon. The supplies won't come until monday to give this another go.

Before I started detailing for a living, maybe 10+ years ago, I did this to my canoe as practice. It's bare aluminum and was pretty oxidized, had no gloss at all so it was perfect to learn to use a rotary buffer and wool pads at the time. That thing looked like a mirror when I was done, spent many days working on it. I can tell you from experience, if you will keep that truck parked outside and it will see the elements, this is kind of a waste of time. My canoe turned dull in less than a year after just a few trips to the river. If they salt the roads by you, it will oxidize almost instantly.

 

[SmoothLC]

Salt in Dubai? Is it possible? (/sarcasm)

Nice find IMO.

 

[John Young]

I can tell you from experience, if you will keep that truck parked outside and it will see the elements, this is kind of a waste of time. My canoe turned dull in less than a year after just a few trips to the river. If they salt the roads by you, it will oxidize almost instantly.

Gotcha--and right there with you. Fortunately 'Dhanno' normally lives inside. And this part of Virginia rarely sees snow. This is also about teaching my son about the iterative art of metal polishing. This is something I learned in Jr High back in California when they actually taught industrial arts. Something I really feel is sorely missing from today's educational curriculum. And I think a lot of people, men and women, hunger for it--and this is why we see 'Maker Spaces' popping up everywhere.

I'm also thinking about putting a clear coat on the whole thing when it is done. Good excuse to buy a HVLP spray gun, I think, and maybe playing with a two part epoxy coating. Been meaning to try that anyways.

Today we made more progress:

It is very satisfying, albeit dirty, work. All of this did reveal that we really need to go after this old bumper with several grades of wet sanding. We are not going out much--Virginia is seeing increased cases of the dreaded bug, so it is a good way of using some time. Amazon does not deliver the sandpaper we need until Wednesday so tomorrow we will be getting to back to work on the heater core in our 1993 Middle East spec model 80. A job I would not wish on anyone...

 

[Kabanstva]

Gotcha--and right there with you. Fortunately 'Dhanno' normally lives inside. And this part of Virginia rarely sees snow. This is also about teaching my son about the iterative art of metal polishing. This is something I learned in Jr High back in California when they actually taught industrial arts. Something I really feel is sorely missing from today's educational curriculum. And I think a lot of people, men and women, hunger for it--and this is why we see 'Maker Spaces' popping up everywhere.

I'm also thinking about putting a clear coat on the whole thing when it is done. Good excuse to buy a HVLP spray gun, I think, and maybe playing with a two part epoxy coating. Been meaning to try that anyways.

Today we made more progress:
View attachment 2239672
It is very satisfying, albeit dirty, work. All of this did reveal that we really need to go after this old bumper with several grades of wet sanding. We are not going out much--Virginia is seeing increased cases of the dreaded bug, so it is a good way of using some time. Amazon does not deliver the sandpaper we need until Wednesday so tomorrow we will be getting to back to work on the heater core in our 1993 Middle East spec model 80. A job I would not wish on anyone...

Speaking of clear coat, most powdercoaters will apply clear powder over polished aluminum parts.

There's evidence that it won't be as durable as two stage powder (color and clear) because on polished parts they can't blast the surface (if you want to maintain the polished look), but it's something I've done and have had great success with. For example, we had the polished lips on a 3-piece wheel clear-powder coated on one of our vehicles and it's been roughly 5 years so far with no issues. Also had a bunch of polished engine parts clear powdered on a 1,000whp vehicle and that's also held up great, no more need to constantly re-polish those parts due to high heat.

We do alot of PPF (paint protection film) work at the shop I work at, and that would be a great alternative to clearcoat or powdercoat on a simple piece like this. The shape of that bumper looks very easy to wrap. The film would do a few things, prevent rock chips and pitting, and completely prevent oxidation. When we do headlight restorations, we always recommend putting PPF over the lights once they are restored, this way the plastic doesn't yellow in a few months. We've seen between 5-10 years lifespan on film on daily driven vehicles, possibly more on garage queens. When the time comes to replace the film due to age, you just give it a little bit of heat, remove the material and reinstall. No need to sand off clearcoat, or chemical bath/media blast as with powdercoat. Suntek, 3M, Stek, and Xpel are the biggest brands in good film if that's something you ever wanna do.