love this build thread, its inspiration because we have the same color. Whats funny is that a buddy has an 80 and wanted to build a 100, and 90% of what you've done to this truck is what hes showing/telling me to do to mine!!
Builds Layonnn's 100 series build
- Thread starter Layonnn
- Start date
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Seems to be coming along nicely Layton! Keep it up.
Should have kept that TuRD sticker off
- Thread starter
- #144
Thanks guys!
Thats not my 100, its MXNDRNKS.
Only sticker on mine is a Louisiana Land Krewesers one
- Thread starter
- #145
Got my Bump It Offroad bolt on rear bumper installed. I will get some more pics of it with the swingouts installed and tire on tomorrow, we finished late at night and i didn't have my spare tire at the shop.
I'd like to thank Brad and Will for all the help. I injured my arm wakeboarding on the day before the install, got my arm caught in the rope on a 360 and fell with it like that. Yanked my arm pretty good and my arm is purple. So most of the work i had to tell Brad and Will what i wanted to do, and get them to do it. But then my arm started to feel better and i jumped in.
Kevin showed up as well and has a very nice GX470 he just build a bumper for. His white GX, and Brad FJC that he just put an ARB awning on to.
I'd like to thank Brad and Will for all the help. I injured my arm wakeboarding on the day before the install, got my arm caught in the rope on a 360 and fell with it like that. Yanked my arm pretty good and my arm is purple. So most of the work i had to tell Brad and Will what i wanted to do, and get them to do it. But then my arm started to feel better and i jumped in.
Kevin showed up as well and has a very nice GX470 he just build a bumper for. His white GX, and Brad FJC that he just put an ARB awning on to.
- Thread starter
- #146
Onto the bumper:
So the pallet arrived in only a couple of days, it was very fast shipping. I also went ahead and ordered a BIOR front skid plate since the shipping amount wouldn't increase much with the bumper already being on a pallet.
I spent Thursday removing my factory rear bumper, cleaning the rear crossmember/frame, tapping/cleaning all bolt holes, cleaning/painting skid plate, and a couple other things.
Then Saturday we got to working on installing.
First thing Sat, we started with notching the rear crossmember. This is fairly easy to do with a cutoff wheel and a sawzall. I made a cut about 2.75" high, and nearly 4" wide. Mike recommends the cut be roughly 2.75"x2.75".
I am not the biggest fan of cutting the crossmember, but there isn't anyway to have the hitch sit as level with the bumper, and for it to tuck in as well as it does. Slee's sticks out a decent bit further to avoid notching the cross member.
The reason i wanted to make the cut wider was so that i could weld in some ~3/16" plate to box in the crossmember where the cuts were made.
So after the cuts, we took some cardboard and i had Brad cut out the metal from some scrap, then i welded it all into place. I left about an 1/8" gap between the crossmember and the plate so that there could be good penetration as i wanted to ground the welds flat. I wasn't sure if having a weld ridge would cause any alignment issues.
I wanted to box in the top as well but you are limited to how high you can cut due to the weld nuts being there.
So, i decided to just reduce the width of the plate, and just notch the notch enough to fit the plate.
Lincoln Electric 170 MIG welder with Argon gas. Works pretty well for the thickness of anything i'd ever build.
With paint. You can also see where i cut off the resonator and welded on a section of 2.5" pipe with a down turn. My dads shop installs exhaust setups on some new camaros pretty regularly so they have a bunch of OEM left overs there. I just took a section and cut it to fit, then welded on a hanger since the rear hangers are attached to the resonator.
So the pallet arrived in only a couple of days, it was very fast shipping. I also went ahead and ordered a BIOR front skid plate since the shipping amount wouldn't increase much with the bumper already being on a pallet.
I spent Thursday removing my factory rear bumper, cleaning the rear crossmember/frame, tapping/cleaning all bolt holes, cleaning/painting skid plate, and a couple other things.
Then Saturday we got to working on installing.
First thing Sat, we started with notching the rear crossmember. This is fairly easy to do with a cutoff wheel and a sawzall. I made a cut about 2.75" high, and nearly 4" wide. Mike recommends the cut be roughly 2.75"x2.75".
I am not the biggest fan of cutting the crossmember, but there isn't anyway to have the hitch sit as level with the bumper, and for it to tuck in as well as it does. Slee's sticks out a decent bit further to avoid notching the cross member.
The reason i wanted to make the cut wider was so that i could weld in some ~3/16" plate to box in the crossmember where the cuts were made.
So after the cuts, we took some cardboard and i had Brad cut out the metal from some scrap, then i welded it all into place. I left about an 1/8" gap between the crossmember and the plate so that there could be good penetration as i wanted to ground the welds flat. I wasn't sure if having a weld ridge would cause any alignment issues.
I wanted to box in the top as well but you are limited to how high you can cut due to the weld nuts being there.
So, i decided to just reduce the width of the plate, and just notch the notch enough to fit the plate.
Lincoln Electric 170 MIG welder with Argon gas. Works pretty well for the thickness of anything i'd ever build.
With paint. You can also see where i cut off the resonator and welded on a section of 2.5" pipe with a down turn. My dads shop installs exhaust setups on some new camaros pretty regularly so they have a bunch of OEM left overs there. I just took a section and cut it to fit, then welded on a hanger since the rear hangers are attached to the resonator.
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- Thread starter
- #147
After all that, then i got it painted up.
Once that was done we mounted the bumper to the vehicle using a jack and some jack stands. This all went pretty smoothly. After everything was bolted on we started working on the wing mounts. One of my forward most hitch bolts on the DS was shifted too far to be used. So, we used one of the 14mm captive nuts on the side of the frame to attach the wing after drilling a hole.
Then i started packing the spindles with grease and went to grease the hubs and test fit the bearing on to the spindle. The bearings wouldn't slide on to the spindle
Turns out on one of them there were some small artifacts. I cant tell what they were but after lightly taking a file to them they flaked off similar to a very hard wax? The PS wouldn't slide past the top threads at all. Tried quite a few time and looked for any burrs or something. There appeared to be a very small lip that was supposed to be there, but apparently not. I took my dremel out and lightly ground down this lip and then all was fine.
Once we got the swing arms on we moved to mounting the latches. One of the bolts snapped when my buddy was tightening it.
First we tried needle nose pliers, nope.
2nd, tried welding a nut to the broken part of bolt, couldn't get it to attach. I tried putting a bolt in one of the other holes to attach the ground and then tried again, still no go.
3rd, tried using a small chisel to hammer around the edges to try and get it to reverse out, nope.
(all of the easy outs at the shop were too big)
Then, after some mental brain storming i remembered using this method on my FJCs MAF sensor phillips head screws that stripped.
I took my dremel with a cutoff wheel and put a slot into the bolt stud, then just backed it out with a flat head screw driver. Worked like a charm.
With the OEM bumper removed, there are no reflectors that face the rear of the vehicle. So if at night and your lights are off, someone will have difficulty seeing you as the tail lights do not reflect that much. So, i pulled the reflectors off of the OEM fascia. On the backside of them is some plastic nips that hold it in place and a bolt. The bolt was kind of hard to remove. I took a hacksaw to it but it sits pretty deep into the reflector. But, using the hacksaw caused it to heat up enough to be able to pop it out once i had it cut all around the sides. Then, we used some 3m double sided tape to attach them to the BIOR.
You can also see the little tap on the DS near the spindle i had Mike add. I will use this as a mounting point for a single Rigid Industries Dually D2 with diffused lens as a back up/camp light. It would also be a great place for a CB antenna. Mine is already mounted to the front ARB though.
I will probably remove the tow hook on the PS as well, but i need to buy shorter hardware. No where in town has 14x1.5mm 10.9 hardware. Most of the local hardware stores i called asked me what 10.9 was. :/
Once that was done we mounted the bumper to the vehicle using a jack and some jack stands. This all went pretty smoothly. After everything was bolted on we started working on the wing mounts. One of my forward most hitch bolts on the DS was shifted too far to be used. So, we used one of the 14mm captive nuts on the side of the frame to attach the wing after drilling a hole.
Then i started packing the spindles with grease and went to grease the hubs and test fit the bearing on to the spindle. The bearings wouldn't slide on to the spindle
Turns out on one of them there were some small artifacts. I cant tell what they were but after lightly taking a file to them they flaked off similar to a very hard wax? The PS wouldn't slide past the top threads at all. Tried quite a few time and looked for any burrs or something. There appeared to be a very small lip that was supposed to be there, but apparently not. I took my dremel out and lightly ground down this lip and then all was fine. Once we got the swing arms on we moved to mounting the latches. One of the bolts snapped when my buddy was tightening it.
First we tried needle nose pliers, nope.
2nd, tried welding a nut to the broken part of bolt, couldn't get it to attach. I tried putting a bolt in one of the other holes to attach the ground and then tried again, still no go.
3rd, tried using a small chisel to hammer around the edges to try and get it to reverse out, nope.
(all of the easy outs at the shop were too big)
Then, after some mental brain storming i remembered using this method on my FJCs MAF sensor phillips head screws that stripped.
I took my dremel with a cutoff wheel and put a slot into the bolt stud, then just backed it out with a flat head screw driver. Worked like a charm.
With the OEM bumper removed, there are no reflectors that face the rear of the vehicle. So if at night and your lights are off, someone will have difficulty seeing you as the tail lights do not reflect that much. So, i pulled the reflectors off of the OEM fascia. On the backside of them is some plastic nips that hold it in place and a bolt. The bolt was kind of hard to remove. I took a hacksaw to it but it sits pretty deep into the reflector. But, using the hacksaw caused it to heat up enough to be able to pop it out once i had it cut all around the sides. Then, we used some 3m double sided tape to attach them to the BIOR.
You can also see the little tap on the DS near the spindle i had Mike add. I will use this as a mounting point for a single Rigid Industries Dually D2 with diffused lens as a back up/camp light. It would also be a great place for a CB antenna. Mine is already mounted to the front ARB though.
I will probably remove the tow hook on the PS as well, but i need to buy shorter hardware. No where in town has 14x1.5mm 10.9 hardware. Most of the local hardware stores i called asked me what 10.9 was. :/
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- Thread starter
- #148
The bumper is very beefy and very well made. The swingouts work very well and i like the little safety pins/locks and the gas struts.
Mike is very good about returning emails/answering calls and working with customers for special requests. (I had sent a PM to slee before i decided on bumpers and asked slee if i could just have a jerry can on the DS as i don't want/need/or like the aesthetics of a ladder. He basically told me they don't do custom swing outs, so no.)
If Mike is open to suggestions mine would be this:
Have an option for folks to buy precut plates to box in the crossmember if they wanted to. Most folks who can weld probably have the material to do this anyways, but if i could have bought the simple plates for 10-20 bucks, i would have.
The more ways you can use OEM bolt holes to attach a bumper the better, IMO. I am a fan of overkill unless it introduces too much weight. There are two spots that i think would benefit from bolt hole locations.
Number one being on the wing, where there is a captive nut on the side of the frame. This is great if one of your captive nuts on the bottom has shifted like mine and many others. Or, if you would like to have 3 bolts attach the wing mounts.
The other place is on the rear cross member. Since the bottom of the crossmember looses its stiffness by being cut, if you had bolts that went through the bottom of the crossmember and the bumper, this would securely pin the lower section of the crossmember into the frame and regain the structural integrity of the crossmember.
Would that be a little overkill? Probably. What do you guys think?
Oh, and currently in the rear i am running OME 860 springs and Radflo 2.5" shocks. I didn't take any height measurements before to measure any sag. But my truck has a pretty good rake to it, about 1.5" or more.
Mike is very good about returning emails/answering calls and working with customers for special requests. (I had sent a PM to slee before i decided on bumpers and asked slee if i could just have a jerry can on the DS as i don't want/need/or like the aesthetics of a ladder. He basically told me they don't do custom swing outs, so no.)
If Mike is open to suggestions mine would be this:
Have an option for folks to buy precut plates to box in the crossmember if they wanted to. Most folks who can weld probably have the material to do this anyways, but if i could have bought the simple plates for 10-20 bucks, i would have.
The more ways you can use OEM bolt holes to attach a bumper the better, IMO. I am a fan of overkill unless it introduces too much weight. There are two spots that i think would benefit from bolt hole locations.
Number one being on the wing, where there is a captive nut on the side of the frame. This is great if one of your captive nuts on the bottom has shifted like mine and many others. Or, if you would like to have 3 bolts attach the wing mounts.
The other place is on the rear cross member. Since the bottom of the crossmember looses its stiffness by being cut, if you had bolts that went through the bottom of the crossmember and the bumper, this would securely pin the lower section of the crossmember into the frame and regain the structural integrity of the crossmember.
Would that be a little overkill? Probably. What do you guys think?
Oh, and currently in the rear i am running OME 860 springs and Radflo 2.5" shocks. I didn't take any height measurements before to measure any sag. But my truck has a pretty good rake to it, about 1.5" or more.
Looking great. I've been subscribed to this thread for quite awhile and enjoy all the work you continue to do with her. I agree on the Slee bumper, I would want the same concept; basket but no ladder. I keep hoping maybe someday they will have that as an option.
Cool Stuff Man - I like the can holder vs the ladder.
I really like the bumper. I would have no need for a ladder so this option seems like a better fit for me.
- Thread starter
- #152
Thanks, same here. I like being able to add customizations to something i am paying this much for.
I have never really understood the need for a ladder, but then again i am 6'1". I can reach every part of my roof from either standing on my rockrails, tires, or the tailgate with the hatch closed.
Same here. It looks like your 100 is coming along nicely! Plus, on the Slee there are no provisions to attach safety chains. I think Slee said he reasoning was he didn't want to give people the impression it was tow rated?
Anyways here are some pics as promised. I loaded up some Scepter cans to see how they fit as well. I will use a basic ratchet strap for holding them down, there are some tabs for these on the can mount. A simple cable gun lock can be used to secure the cans to the rack. I took Roux along and she decided it was a little hot and she wanted some shade haha. Its only 91*, she is such a sissy.
In this pic it seems like my front suspension is quite high, its not that high. The rear PS tire is on a angle so it lifted up on the front end.
Looks Great Layton....roux looks quite happy with the progress! How do the cans lock into place?
Looks great buddy! I had a lot of fun putting this one on, I just hope my swing out goes that smooth.
What's funny is I did not even realize you had a build thread on MUD. I just thought it was on the blue room. D'oh
What's funny is I did not even realize you had a build thread on MUD. I just thought it was on the blue room. D'oh
- Thread starter
- #156
Thanks Garth and Matt.
The cans fit pretty snuggly. There are tabs with holes in order to use a ratchet strap to secure the cans to the mount.
As for locking, a simple cable gun lock could be ran through both cans and the main center tube of the mount for theft prevention. A bigger bike cable lock could also be used.
Yeah, i update this one a little more Brad. More interest i guess haha.
And i am guessing the bumper will be somewhat similar to Jasons, his was a very simple install.
OH and i figured out where that little red tab is supposed to go, we don't have it in the right position, haha. It is supposed to go on the ubolt piece that swivels near the locking bolts, my guess is so that you can use your thumb to move the ubolt into position when clamping/unclamping.
Oh, so as to take out the slack in the U bolt? It still seems like it should be on there a bit tighter. 
- Thread starter
- #158
Oh, so as to take out the slack in the U bolt? It still seems like it should be on there a bit tighter.
The u bolts should be tighter? I lowered them so they clamp a little bit tighter now.
Oh and the spot on the wings behind the tire is open, so that little cavity can fill with mud. There are two screws right there that hold the inner fender to the body. I took a sheet of rigid plastic (~1/8" thick) and cut it to shape and then screwed it in place. I think it will work very well.
r2m
Richard
I like that everything is high and tight in the back. Not all cantilevered, hanging way off the back end with a huge gap between the hatch and spare.
Looks very good!
I like the color too! My wife and I have the same color for both of ours, albeit she'd perfer white.
Looks very good!
I like the color too! My wife and I have the same color for both of ours, albeit she'd perfer white.
Nice looking rear bumper Layton! I especially like the minimum overhang. My aux tank butts up against and attaches to the rear cross-member which precludes me from using a 4x4 Labs type bumper or any that require removal of the rear most crossmember. However it looks like Mike's would work on mine as it only involves notching the crossmember. Does any portion of Mike's bumper protrude past the inner wall of the cross member?
I do scrape the outer lower edge of the spare tire on occasion...coming off steep ledges...wonder if he'd extend the vertical upright to allow the spare to sit a little higher? Maybe this is a non issue with the less overhang design of the bumper?
I didn't have a need for a ladder until recently getting my Columbus RTT. Now I have a use for a rear mounted ladder. Although having one centered would be the best...still trying to resolve that one.
Now if Mike would offer a bumper for the 1" body lift crowd
Get all your wheel'n buds converted to HAM and bag the CB
Anyway...your rig is coming along nicely!
I do scrape the outer lower edge of the spare tire on occasion...coming off steep ledges...wonder if he'd extend the vertical upright to allow the spare to sit a little higher? Maybe this is a non issue with the less overhang design of the bumper?
I didn't have a need for a ladder until recently getting my Columbus RTT. Now I have a use for a rear mounted ladder. Although having one centered would be the best...still trying to resolve that one.
Now if Mike would offer a bumper for the 1" body lift crowd
Get all your wheel'n buds converted to HAM and bag the CB
Anyway...your rig is coming along nicely!
