New ARB bumper... anyone else feel the....

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J

jimfitz99

10 Year 15 Year
Joined
Dec 27, 2009
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7
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42
Need to get the grinder out and hook up the welding leads? I just picked up my bumper from the shipping terminal and got it into the garage. On first glance i'm thinking the weld holding the side sections to the main winch section should have been ground flush and that the shackle/tow points look REALLY thin to me. Under double line load I can imagine that's fine but i'm thinking a normal crosby shackle would like more meat to hook too. It looks like anything over a 10 degree line pull would bend the attachment point.

Has anyone received an arb bumper and got busy with the welded and/or grinder?
 
I wouldn't pull anything with the recovery points.:eek: IMO, the whole lower dam needs to go and the wings need to be strengthened. Of course, if you're going to do that much work, you might as well build a bumper from scratch.:meh:
 
Thanks man. That's kind of what i'm throwing out there. I don't want to re-invent the wheel. The bumper is very cool and quite complex in it's construction. I'm glad they made every effort to keep it light. I'm 35, 3 kids, wife goin back to grad school and have the tools and ability to make my own but when time is more precious than $$$ i decided to go ARB. When you try to imagine how much time and effort it would take to make that bumper as is... you realize you'd be spending way too much time away from those you love. So back to the original question ...

What have y"all done to make this bumper better?
 
Beefing up attachment points is one thing, stiffening a bumper too much can make it so it doesn't absorb any energy in a crash. That might threaten the safety of those 3 precious little ones. Design is all about compromises. If you need a bumper stiff enough to push stuff out of the way, get a bulldozer instead...
 
Pics or you didn't get an arb
 
Hey Staleale, Yeah those ankle bighters are pretty important to me.

I'll take some pics in the morning between basketball and carpet shopping.

I forgot to mention in the midst of all this i'm still trying to finish our 130 year old two family house with a foot of snow a week recently. oh and trying to save to buy another house and save the $620,000 in a 529 which sallie may thinks i need to have to pay for college. WTF and that's using 5.4% for tuition cost growth. In my case that's only 144 months/payments away at the moment which is about $3500/month. No sweat ahy?

I see a brick mason for my son's future.
 
Are those recovery points or place to hook your winch line when using a pulley...? I was told never to use those with a chain or strap because they weren't designed to handle dynamic forces. I was also told that the frame recover points aren't really recovery points either. Rather they were to strap the vehicle down during transportation... They definitely look to me like they were engineered to handle a downward force rather than a lateral pull.

Anyone know for sure?
 
Just set aside $100 a week for the cruiser and you should be fine:doh:
 
After beating up the skirt on mine, I got the cutoff wheel hot. Trimmed the whole skirt off, the "lift" holes. traced around the whole inner side to match the bodyline and cut it off. This (and a bunch of trimming/test fitting) let me slide the whole bumper in about 2 1/5" moved the front underside hole of the bumper back to the rear underside hole on the frame and punched new holes in the bumper for the rest of the bolts. Then shortened the wings to match the wheel well and plated the whole inside leaving a few air holes for drainage and amber light maintenance. last thing I did was trim off the upper light tabs. They kinda got in the way of opening the hood.:)

Next thing to go is going to be the roller fairlead top plate/guard (already installed a hawse fairlead). I was told I would need to brace the inside of that area so as not to leave a weak spot.
 
It still amazes me that the arb bumpers dont come with proper shackle mounts. Fot the amount of cash they charge they should....

D
 
I bent one of my "recovery" points on a rock going about 2 mph....

I am running the stock recovery points bolted on below the bumper just so I have something solid to pull with. To answer the other question, the stock points are just fine for extractions. I don't like having them down there as they like to hit rocks, but until I reinforce the ARB points, they have to stay....
 
Trailbus said:
After beating up the skirt on mine, I got the cutoff wheel hot. Trimmed the whole skirt off, the "lift" holes. traced around the whole inner side to match the bodyline and cut it off. This (and a bunch of trimming/test fitting) let me slide the whole bumper in about 2 1/5" moved the front underside hole of the bumper back to the rear underside hole on the frame and punched new holes in the bumper for the rest of the bolts. Then shortened the wings to match the wheel well and plated the whole inside leaving a few air holes for drainage and amber light maintenance. last thing I did was trim off the upper light tabs. They kinda got in the way of opening the hood.:)

Next thing to go is going to be the roller fairlead top plate/guard (already installed a hawse fairlead). I was told I would need to brace the inside of that area so as not to leave a weak spot.
Click to expand...

Pics of this setup?
 
I'd leave it alone. The ARB bumpers are designed to meet OZ safety regulations, so you know that they're engineered well. As for the recovery/jack points, yeah, they look wimpy. I still wouldn't do any welding on the ARB though. Just my $.02 :)
 
I found that the bumper has pitifull ground clearance (worse than stock) so I did a little cut, grind, weld routine of my own.

Done-4.jpg


Thread:
https://forum.ih8mud.com/80-series-tech/400952-arb-modification.html
 
AustinCruiser said:
I'd leave it alone. The ARB bumpers are designed to meet OZ safety regulations, so you know that they're engineered well. As for the recovery/jack points, yeah, they look wimpy. I still wouldn't do any welding on the ARB though. Just my $.02 :)
Click to expand...

That type of thinking is exactly why ARB gets away with marketing "bull bars" for a ton of money that you can't then use properly offroad.

I doubt anybody here in the U.S. knows a damn thing about Australian safety laws, but given the crap they allow on the front of a SUV from the factory in the U.S., and that those exact same SUVs are most likely sold in Australia, I sure wouldn't take that up as the standard of safety or protection for a 4x4 that is going to see serious use.

Australia is not some mythical world where everything is perfectly designed (sorry mates, love you guys, but the U.S. cubicle dwellers are so hot and heavy over the idea of an "expo" that they can't see straight). The wheeling available in the Western U.S. is the world standard, not Australia, which is why I would buy from a company designing its products to meet that standard. This, generally speaking, means strength, minimum weight, and maximum clearance. The ARB does not maximize that design goal in any area.

The OP clearly recognizes this and has an appreciation that starting point of an ARB is pretty good with some modification.

[please insert replies about deer protection and the pure and utterly unsubstantiated speculation that an ARB saved somebody's life in a crash here :flipoff2:]
 
hey jimfitz99,

Someone on Mud was selling laser cut support pieces to beef up the ARB bumper recovery points. It basically doubled up the thickness and fit perfectly on the tabs.
I welded those on and it will handle side loads better, however I think they would still bend under a decent load- just better than stock now.
 
^^ lol x2 nay.

Ill be selling the one on my 60 in the spring if anyone wants it for their expo rig.

And why the hell wouldnt you weld on any steel bumper? Is making the hilift points on the arb more substancial really going to compromise anything? I higly doubt it man. If you think so stop taking the crack.

D
 
BrotherRob said:
I wouldn't pull anything with the recovery points.:eek: IMO, the whole lower dam needs to go and the wings need to be strengthened. Of course, if you're going to do that much work, you might as well build a bumper from scratch.:meh:
Click to expand...

This is why I sold my ARB and bought a Metal Tech way beefier and lighter.
P1060008.webp
 
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