I use a Lincoln Electric 175 Plus with gas. I was taught on this build by a friend, Rob, to crank the heat and it worked. It also helps to use the guide on the inner door of the welder, for the non-professionals!
I made multiple heavy tacks to prevent movement, and then I tried to make all the welds continuous over top, sure did make for cleaner looking welds.
I sort of cleaned it up, but I aside from grinding the spatter balls off, I basically left the welds. I like the rough look, and just took the rough edges off the metal cuts as well.
So it's time for the details stuff now. I always wanted a winch on the back, and was given a Warn planetary style winch a while back. It's a 6000 lb winch, but the fit is perfect and certainly is better than no winch!
And again a big thanks to Mike @ Warn technical for the parts and stickers.
I went with a 3/8" plate under the winch. I could have cut it a bit smaller, but I left it longer to tie it into the hitch cross member, and if I feel it's necessary in the end to add more structure, I will use this.
I drilled the mounting holes for the winch feet. I added a light 1 1/2" angle pce to the front on each side and welded them to the receiver cross member on the rear facing side. I then welded a heavy 2" angle, 6" long to the front facing part of the hitch. The front facing bolts now spread the load of the working winch all along the receiver cross member. I made it also so that by loosening the bolts on the winch I can remove and service the winch without having to remove the bumper.
Instead of a roller fairlead, I decided on a hawse. It's a lot more lower profile and just as effective. I also didn't want to just bolt it on, so I template it, and then cut it through the bumper as low and straight through as I could make it.
I used a pce of 3/16" plate as a backing plate for the hawse mount, and make it fairly wide as well. This should add a fair bit of structure to the body of the bumper too. In the bottom pic you can see that wire rope feeding should be good from the bottom of the winch drum.
Exhaust work has always made me nervous, it's kind of thin and a pain in the ass to work with. But from all the earlier comments it sure is something that everyone has an opinion on.
Exhaust is really corrosive, and I wanted to keep it out the back, but I had to modify what I had for sure. I run a 12ht so I have a 3" mandrel exhaust. I found that it will fit right up between the body mount bolt and outer body work. 1/4" to spare on each side.
This way the bottom plate of the bumper protects the exhaust from being too painfully distorted.
Once again. drill a start hole and put the plasma cutter to work. I used 3/8" plywood to make a template.
Here is exhaust exit in primer. If you look at the bracket, you can see I've cut and inserted a pc of 1 3/8" DOM cut 1 1/8" long thru the bracket. This is a solid mount for a shackle.
LCWizard - this is a shameless copy of your idea. But hey, I didn't think you'd mind. And I proudly display your bumper on the front of my truck! I will be modifying that in the summer, although. Pics to follow in August.
Final paint and bolt it on. After another 1/2 bottle of Sailor Jerry's rum, my brother said I had to have at least one pic of me working on the truck. I'm glad he was there, it was getting kind of heavy! If you look at the exhaust you can see why I cut it through the bumper. It's going to be way better, up there out of the way. Plus it will look cool!
I am getting tired of Black. So I went through the paint cards and came up with a nice contrast to the Black Jade. It's another Ford colour ( by chance )
I learned from Rob when I did it. I actually layed the pipe on the bottom of the bumper when welded the tailpipe in place. Then we slightly modified the brackets, but kept the rubber isolator intact. We used a 3" u-bolt as a wrap around and tacked it to the bottom of the tailpipe. Then, this is what I learned, you want to keep the tailpipe under tension when you final weld it into place. So the tailpipe was welded purposely laying on the bumper, and then I shimmed the tailpipe up under tension, and then welded the bracket in place. It sits in the middle of the hole in the bumper, and so far, it's tight.
I have had this semi tractor license plate holder lying around for a few years. Its aluminum, is 24" wide, and has really tough return springs on a 1 1/2" flange. So I got the idea to mount it in front of the winch, springing upward. It works like a hot damn! I'm going to rivet a couple of end pcs to it, and make it full frame width. It effectively covers the entire winch from bottom to top right against the bottom of the floor of the truck. One of those "that's why you keep this s*** lying around for years!!"
For now it's finished. I will be adding the quarter armour and a under rear corner skid plate later. I have been called to work, and will put this away until August.
Thanks to all for your compliments.
