My bumper jorney

[Jgunner]

Let me start off with: if you think iys a weeked or two job to fully fab a decent bumper and swinger, without anything more than a grinder, welder, hammer and lots of blood sweat(esp sweat, it’s arizona after all!) and skin. I haven’t cried, yet.

To start, i helped design this from scratch, on solidworks. Then took it to a buddy to have plasma tabled out(it was only working about 1/2 as good as it was supposed to, we got it working 95% about half way through ).

Its made of 3/16 mild, Bolt on and the frame is untouched. Maybe that was a mistake, maybe not. I don’t know yet.

I’ll jump to the semi fabbed part ive shared in the past.

 

[Jgunner]

So i welded and welded and welded some more! Then i ground, ground grounded some more!! And it still needs more polishing....

 

[Jgunner]

So, i started on the swinger, mind you, i have NEVER made a tire swinger before, so im praying i get lucky with my designs, but, I won’t be coating it until it has a few thousand miles on it.

Things will get trimmed, gusseted and such, im realllly into gussets!

 

[samiam09]

looks good , how many hours so far

 

[Jgunner]

So, with the spindle where its gonna be, gotta make the latch side. Is i see it, this thing is kinda long/wide whatever you call it, so it’ll support somehow in the middle, or ill spread the tire struts really wide. Both? I dunno. We will see.

Its at an angle so it wedges itself in there. There will be a gusset on the back side of the bumper tab it will act as a stop. The wedge and stop will get a very thin sheet of rubber on them for silence.

 

[RobE30]

Looks great!

 

[Jgunner]

Ill put a plate/gusset behind where my finger is.

The t bolt will go into a piece of cromolly tube, ran through the top plate and welded all around on the back skin of it. Picture L shape welding. Should hold it.

 

[Jgunner]

looks good , how many hours so far

Uh, prob 40, its just been me, no help.

 

[tominboise]

If you are planning on mounting a tire mount on it, you could build it like a truss and then take advantage of the section height of the mount to keep the lower bar from sagging.

 

[Rainen]

Looking good. I know at the end of building my rear bumper, the price of off the shelf solutions seemed really reasonable. Good luck with your build.

 

[Jgunner]

If you are planning on mounting a tire mount on it, you could build it like a truss and then take advantage of the section height of the mount to keep the lower bar from sagging.

Pretty much my plan the 2x3 is .120 wall, nothing crazy, but i will triangulate all i can.

 

[Jgunner]

Looking good. I know at the end of building my rear bumper, the price of off the shelf solutions seemed really reasonable. Good luck with your build.

Exactly my point in the beginning, plus, some of them have been proven over the years.

 

[Pascoscout]

Looks good so far. Steps are a nice touch.

Couple observations:

If your arm is 1/8" thick tube you may end up with some flexing of the arm when driving. Just be sure to mount your tire so it does not bump up against the car when it moves around. Using a wide spread truss to put the riser for the tire will help some or if you don't like it step up to 1/4" tube.

Also clean your material a little more and check your wire speed on your welder. You have a lot of spatter so the speed may be too high and/or you're not getting down to clean metal.

How is the spindle retained in the bumper? Just looks like the bearing is pressed into the hole and the spindle into that? Granted with the weight on the arm it probably won't be an issue on normal use but without a retaining system the arm could become a projectile in a roll over. Maybe it's done and just not shown in the pictures. Also is there a second bearing inside the bumper? With just one on top like that you may see drooping of the arm when it opens.

Good call on not final coating it right away. I just painted mine and glad I did cause after a year of use there are a few things I want to change. Keep up the good work!

 

[Jgunner]

Spindle has 5-3/16 plates welded across on the inside like a sandwich from top to almost bottom. They are about 6” wide each and spaced about 1/2” apart. Spindle is 2 taper bearings, washer and a castle nut. Seal will go in after paint. Its from ruffstuff as is the other hardware.


The splatter today was from the mil scale i neglected to grind off, first bad spatter I’ve had, it was a “oops” moment for sure. Gotta clean all that up. Its gonna suck.

 

[nukegoat]

I dunno man. I really like some of the aesthetics of it. Nice work.

 

[Rifleman]

Really nice work, but don't forget to include some type of lock, to lock your arm in place once it's opened.

 

[Jgunner]

Really nice work, but don't forget to include some type of lock, to lock your arm in place once it's opened.

I have another t-handle pin. I already planned to put multiple holes to lock it in different angles in case 90* and 180* are not an option at that time.

 

[mderrick]

I would also recommend some kind of travel limiter, before I was finished with my tire carrier it swung around a dented the side of my truck...

 

[Jgunner]

I would also recommend some kind of travel limiter, before I was finished with my tire carrier it swung around a dented the side of my truck...

I was thinking of this. Not sure how to proceed yet, but i will run one. Maybe do a strut like 4x4 labs and a welded in stop on the passenger side? My buddy built one out of 1/4”, over the last few years it has bent it, so there can be a lot of force in there. It put a lot of force on the arm too, which at my bend i will be making a plate gusset, maybe 6-12” long to spread the load, one on top as well, but that’ll come after the stuts for the tire, so it’ll combine those two together to the spindle itself.



Just in case anyone was wondering, it only weighed 60#’s before the swinger, ill be adding some gusseting underneath on the corners to support them better in case of backing into something or someone hiting me, they are tge weakest point, also the wings will have frame supports to keep them from walking, one side is half built but not bolted to the bumper yet. It will close the gap some to the the flares. Just not all of it.

 

[Dork]

Looking good. The satisfaction that comes from doing it yourself far outweighs the hours sunk into it.

I would second the suggestion about using something thicker for the tire support; I used 2x2x.120 for mine, and there is quite a bit of flex while holding a 35" tire. Enough so that it has me considering a do-over of the whole project in the future.