My bumper build

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Hi Clint,

I'm in Eugene. I'm not a member of any clubs. How would I get involved with Cascade?
 
First head to the forums at www.cascadecruisers.com, and get to a meeting. Our next run is the Xmas tree run on Saturday, Dec 2nd. Any cruiserheads, member or not, are always welcome on our runs.

EDIT: A great club a little closer to you is Oregon Trail 4x4. They just put on the event where the mini truck got speared through his headlight bucket.. you may have seen pics. They are much more tame than that shot leads you to believe and are a great group of people. Mostly out of Cottage Crove/Creswell so they are close, and the area they wheel in is amazingly beautiful. ot4x4.org Cascade Cruisers is kind of a partner club with them in that we try to invite them on each other's runs.
 
Great looking bumper, mate! Aint no bendin that sucker when it hits the ground!
icon14.gif
:cheers: Will it afect your departure angle?
 
Very Very nice build :cool:

I'm gonna print it all out and make my brother put one together for me. I was looking at bumpers in the same price range as you, and always thought it was a liiiiiiittle to expensive for a toy.

Thanks for the inspiration :cheers:
 
Hi mountain goat,

like eeshkleby said Cascade cruisers has a great website. I have nott been able to coordinate schedules to do any runs with them. I would love to get an all 60's meet sometime in the future. Let me know if you are interested.

On a side note can you give any more info on your swing out mounts? Bearings/ bushings size/ weight it will hold etc.

thanks for the inspiration,

Clint
 
Thanks guys.

I might get in touch with a local group about the time my engine swap is finished. Not much point until then. :) I've never really wheeled my truck. I think it's about time.

As for the swing-out pivots - There is no science involved with this one. I just built what I guessed would hold more than the weight I planned to hang on them. I suppose I could have done the calculations to figure out what it would take to bend 1.25" of hot rolled mild steel, and compared that to the torque produced by an 80 pound tire on 24" moment arm, but that seemed like way too much engineering. I'd rather just over build it an be done.

So the construction of the pivots is very simple. I didn't use any bearings like some of the commercial pivots. They are just a 1.25" pin (turned to 1.246" precisely). The part that swivels is a 1.25" tube (.313" thick) that I will weld the swing-outs to. At the bottom, the swivel rides on a collar turned from the same stock as the swivel tube. The collar is welded to the bumper. On top of the collar is a sintered bronze thrust washer. On top of the swivel is another thrust washer, a grade 8 flat washer, lock washer, and nut threaded onto the threaded end of the machined pin. The nut, lock washer and flat washer tighten against a shelf turned into the pin so that when tightened they do not cause the swivel to bind. In the finished installation the swivel will be lubricated with a zerk.

The pics below might help to clarify.

:cheers:
 
Err. Oops. Here are the pics.
swivel-2.webp
swivel-1.webp
 
Great looking bumper, mate! Aint no bendin that sucker when it hits the ground!
icon14.gif
:cheers: Will it afect your departure angle?

Hi Garry,

Thank for the kind words. The next little Honda to rear-end me (there has already been one) is really going to feel the pain. Their crumple zone will be tested. :D

I don't expect departure angle to be seriously affected. Maybe just a little. The new bumper hangs down about the same as stock, but sticks out a few inches farther. I'm wanting more of an expedition setup than anything for crawling. A bumper that sticks out more is what I need for roof rack access. My big feet had difficulty with the narrow stock bumper and wouldn't be any better with many commercial bumpers.

:cheers:
 
Rough total cost in materials is about $350 at present. Of course I've had to buy a bunch of tools for the build, but we all know about tools. They don't really count.

My metal purchases have been mostly of prime material at retail prices from a local metal dealer. It's really quite amazing how much a little piece of metal can cost. The one score I did get was on the main 5 x 3 tube that I used. I got that for about half since it was a remnant they had sitting around for a long time.
 
That's inspiring, the man in the brown suit dropped off my welder last week, just gathering a few last tools, then materials and I will be testing out my bumper creation skills as well. That looks great, and I hear you on the $1500 bumper, ouch.
 
Great build but I would have done this.

I would have made the bumper supports that would be designed to split in the event of a impact. Saw this on Discovery TV where a car hit the back end of this impact trailer and it split the tubes that support the back bumper like a bannana. The idea is to abosob as much of the impact as much as possible and not have the impact be absobed by the frame of the truck pulling it. While the effectivness of this method would be substantially reduced in a build like this any design of this nature would help both the driver of the truck and the damage to his frame.


Now if a bumper is to heavy and to strong.

My brother once had a late 70s dodge pickup with a slant 6. He and a friend bolted on ship channel I beam steel onto the font of the truck. It was so heavy both of them had to heave it up onto the mounts with alot of force.
one day As I drove down I-5 in Tacoma I passed what looked like a rear end accident between a truck and a passanger car. Well it was my brothers truck. I stopped to ask him what happened and he said he rear ended that brand new convertible in stop and go traffic. His $400 dollar truck did $6,000 of damage to the convertible and he had no insurance.

The bumper was slightly bent but that was the extent of the damage. No one apeared hurt and my brother and the convertibles owners were in the back of a State trooper car giving statements.
 
Thanks for your comments haryv.

I did consider some of your points early in the design. In the end I opted for simplicity.

I also anticipate that at some point the bumper will be supporting the weight of my truck, be it on a rock or something else. In that capacity, I want something that doesn't have any give.
 
Q: I would have made the bumper supports that would be designed to split in the event of a impact. Saw this on Discovery TV where a car hit the back end of this impact trailer and it split the tubes that support the back bumper like a bannana. The idea is to abosob as much of the impact as much as possible and not have the impact be absobed by the frame of the truck pulling it. While the effectivness of this method would be substantially reduced in a build like this any design of this nature would help both the driver of the truck and the damage to his frame

can you show us a picture of this :banana: mount
 
Just checked this thread after a long time.

Receiver material can be bought at your local metal dealer. You just have to specify it. It looks just like 2.5 x 2.5 x .250 square tube, but it apparently doesn't have the weld in one side like normal tubes.

You pay a premium for it, but the added insurance is worth it.
 
Time to revive this thread. I finished one of the swing-outs.
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One more pic.
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The bumper looks great! Ever thought about making a bunch of those and selling them? I bet you could make a fortune if you have some spare time on your hands.
 
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