If your a light weight wheeler those are ok (and there's nothing wrong with L.W. wheelers) but if you like to hit the hard stuff the light stuff won't hold up. The slider I just smashed is 3/8" wall steam pipe and my ARB bumper doesn't have a straight piece on it
I disagree - DOM tube bumpers that are properly designed can take some deflection without damage. A bumper like ARB is going to be relatively light gauge on its outer corners where it is most likely to take impact, and that's why they bend easily in rock crawling - you hit it and you bend it. Not to mention those bumpers rarely improve clearance because they aren't designed to tuck the winch inside the frame rails.
I had a 135 lb winch bumper on my last rig and it bent easily just as I saw ARB bumpers bend easily. I went to tube and worked that bumper hard with no issues, shedding 80 lbs in process and dramatically improving approach angle. Just standard .120 wall DOM. You cannot beat tube for strength to weight ratio. It is easily triangulated, can be tucked in for best possible clearance, and is relatively low cost.
So the harder you plan to wheel, the less you can afford these 'roo killers if you don't want to mangle them. For sliders on an 80...weight is not the consideration as you'll use them. I have Slee step sliders and no plans to change them...even the tube step is an excellent pivot point that substantially protects the body, and those tubes have proven their strength in my personal usage.
Now I like your approach to the rear bumper. There isn't 200 lbs hanging off the back and you trimmed the frame and braced it back to the frame inside the wheel well. Very much in my line of thinking and you really need something with the strength of a slider on the rear lower quarter panel, because 80's can tend to come down hard on those points.
To a more general point:
I always hesitate to even respond to these posts due to the general defensiveness about OME springs. It's been proven over and over that high quality American made springs can substantially outperform OME springs, even at similar cost points because they don't have to be imported. Slee has done it himself. He still uses the OME L shock, and everybody talks about the drastic improvement over OME on the Slee lifts. If the shock is the same, and the lift is taller, then you only get improvement one way: better spring design.
This is simply a different option with a different design premise. You can build a dual purpose rig with plenty of armor protection without huge increases in total vehicle weight, and you can tow the heavy occasional trailer without adverse impact. You can improve your angles (except breakover) without resorting solely to excess lift. Good suspension companies can build suspensions with better balance and overall performance than OME - I would say that it is pretty well agreed that Slee has already done this. This happens as a matter of course as 4x4 markets mature. FOR isn't a brand name here and it is not my challenge to make it so. I can only talk about thought and design process and outcome, and that it happens to be OME contrarian is all the more
I personally believe that OME 80 series suspensions are designed with so much excess up travel, and therefore minimize tire size that fits without contact, because the springs allow too much compression (same reason you need so much stinkbug to handle extra load). Stiff shock valving (excess spring damping) is then required to control this motion, and you get a ride that isn't great and a suspension height that may be difficult to optimize across a normal range of usage.
So are higher end springs and shocks perhaps worth the extra spend for an 80? Is maximizing tire size for a given lift height a value approach for the 80? Those being the questions of this thread, I had my answer a long time ago. We have choices and information, good for us
