High Clearance Rear Bumper Install (Part 1)
Purpose: Install a Brute Force Fabrication high-clearance rear bumper with single swing out. This will improve exit angle, protect the rear of the truck from drops, and provide a much better way to store the full-size spare and water, so that I can leave the bed open for other uses. And it looks great.
Cost:
~$1800
Materials:
-Brute Force Fabrication bumper with swing-out
-17mm socket
-Various other size sockets
-Impact gun and breaker bar
-Pliers
-Tape measure
-Flat bar
-masking tape of two different colors
-Cut-off wheel or nibbler
-Fine metal file
-Touch-up paint
-Friends
Background
The 1st gen double cab Tundra has a full-size bed, and sticks out rather far past the rear axle. The body paneling is also very low to the ground, as is the factory hitch. This picture shows the truck before the rear bumper, with 33" tires and 2.5" of lift in the rear.
The height of the rear panel from the ground is ~23"
The height of the tow hitch is ~19.5"
Procedure:
Remove the tailgate. The plastic guards on the bumper need to come off first:
Underneath are quite a few plastic tabs. Use a set of pliers to gently squeeze them and push up.
Remove the plastic covers and detach the license plate lights. Remove the bolts circled. The blue ones are large and will require some soaking with penetrating fluid. There are a few underneath as well. Once they are all out, the bumper comes off easily.
Now you'll see the factory hitch. There are six 17mm bolts on each side holding it on. I soaked mine for several days prior, and they came out fine with an impact gun. 10 out of the 12 screw into welded-on bolts, and the last 2 have removable bolts. Save all these.
Remove the factory hitch and this is what you have
Now this is where things get interesting. I thought I had taken pictures of all this, but apparently I didn't so I will try and explain. I'll try to show the measurements with the after pictures. Place tape above and below the expected cut area. Use a different colored tape to mark the cut line itself. For the double cab Tundra the measurements are made from the top of the bed rail and down. Use a flat bar across the bed and place the end of the tape measure under it, and let it hang down. Mark in many different areas and use the tape to set the line. Double and triple check. The measurements I used will be shown later.
Wear eye protection (and hearing protection), use some sort of a cutting implement (I used an angle grinder with a cut-off disk....others have used similar or even a nibbler), take a really deep breath, and go for it.
Here are the measurements I used. Brute Force sent me some pictures showing 21-3/8"s for their cut, but I wanted to leave myself a little more room for error and went with 21-1/2". I probably would've given myself a bit more wiggle room if I were to do it over again.
Cut all the way through the rear of the wheel well and take it off. It will be flush with the surrounding bed support beams when it's done. Once both sides are cut, this is what you are left with. And you will be thinking to yourself "What have I done??".
The underside of the bed is painted in primer, and some of this will show between the bumper and the bed. I cleaned it up and painted these areas black.
Use a couple of friends and test fit the bumper. Adjust your cuts as needed so the gaps are mostly even all the way around. Once you are satisfied, take a fine metal file and clean up all the edge and cuts. Then mask off a bit and paint over the bare metal on the edges.
At this point the bumper is ready to be installed permanently. Reuse 10 of the 12 original 17mm bolts (the new bumper does not use the two forward most holes). I put anti-seize on all of them and torqued each one to 74 ft/lbs (factory spec).
I'm a complete novice at working with metal and my cuts show it. I'd give myself a 6/10 on my work to be really honest. The cuts weren't totally straight and the gaps weren't perfect.
-Kevin
