fourfa
Observer
Hello folks. I haven't posted here much but have been lurking for a while. But since there was just a group deal on Aluminess bumpers on another Toyota site and I just went through my install with a fine-toothed comb, I thought it might be useful to post my findings here.
First off, this is a 2005 Tacoma DC/LB loooooong wheelbase truck, used for overland trips, camping, rock climbing trail access, sometimes difficult trail work. Mostly CA/AZ/NV/UT. Rear Dakar HDs with Fox adjustable shocks, Leer shell full of canned food and rock climbing gear. Front suspension still underway.
It came time for a winch and bumper and looking to save weight as much as possible, I decided on a Warn M8000 and Aluminess bumper. The Warn comes to around 50 lbs with hawse fairlead and synthetic rope (weighed it myself). The Aluminess bumper is supposedly 55 lbs, which would be about 30 lbs more than the plastic bumper and aluminum support that came off. Didn't have an opportunity to verify that. Anyway there happened to be a group deal on Tacomaworld in December so I bit. I brought the truck to Aluminess for install as I was planning to be in the area and they kindly made sure it would be ready by then. Install charge was beyond reasonable (1 hr - $65, even though they ended up spending more than 3 hours on it).
The bumper has a large central winch compartment with a locking hatch cover. The M8000 fits in there with PLENTY of room to spare. It's tempting to store stuff in there, if it can take rain and crud. There aren't any tie down features so stuff could bounce around and potentially foul the radiator or tranny cooler lines (probably not worth it). The thick plate of the recovery points form the outer walls of the compartment and are completely seam welded, big thick TIG welds. There is plenty of room either side of the hatch to drill and mount lights. The outboard sections are thinner plate and nicely shaped to my eyes. A brush hoop runs about hood height around the headlights and over the grill. The rope feed slot lines up perfect with my winch - on a level pull, it almost doesn't touch the fairlead at all inside or outside.
(with the supplied wire rope and roller fairlead, combined 40 lbs, now gone)
Mostly I want to point out a few things I noticed (any specific questions, just ask). The bumper mounts with four bolts or studs on each side, eight total. One pair of these studs mount inside the winch compartment, very near the lower corners and right next to a thick seam weld. On the other locations, Aluminess installed very large Grade 8 washers under the bolt heads or nuts. Same here, except the large washer ends up sitting cockeyed on top of the edge of the seam weld. When I inspected everything, the 400 mile trip home was enough for the nuts on these studs to have loosened to barely finger tight. You can't properly torque a nut that doesn't sit flat and even. So you'd want to inspect those nuts very carefully and find appropriate small washers so these can sit flat (I had some in a box of random parts).
One thing that concerns me - the winch compartment floor has no drain holes. The rear edge is about 1" high, and it sure looks like it'll hold a full inch of water for quite some time. That's enough to immerse the motor ground lug, and the bottom edge of the motor case. Underway, surely much of that would splash out. Should I be concerned? It would be simple to drill a couple of drain holes, but I worry about introducing spots where water etc can get under the powdercoating and cause peeling, cracking etc. Would simply painting the holes be enough to protect it? Or should I leave well enough alone?
The recent group buy on this bumper said several times that the foglight locations are sized for PIAA 510 lights. Not true - the 510s sit about 1.5" too far recessed (noticeably limiting beam spread to the inside) and about 1" too small in diameter, and mount too low in the light hole (which is just over 6" in diameter). Aluminess installed some thick washers to space them upward, but still not ideal. Don't know what lights would fit better but I'm all ears. I'm not terribly impressed by the PIAAs anyway for the price.
Here's a trick I figured out for making a heavy duty harness to mate to the factory foglight harness. Take your old 9145 foglight bulbs and carefully clip the electrical leads directly under the bulb. The bulb will now fall out with a bit of wiggling. With wirecutters or other tool, clip away at the plastic ring surrounding those wires, which will now stick up about 3/4". Twist the bare leads from your lights (the PIAA 510s have a plastic harness with giant spade connectors, I clipped them off) over the posts, and fold the wire tight over the twisted lead (and below the surface of the remaining plastic shell). Solder, and pot in place with epoxy. Presto, a durable waterproof connector.
The winch mount holes are sized for 1/2" bolts. My Warn M8000 uses 3/8" bolts (I assume the larger winches use 1/2"). Aluminess kindly mounted it in the compartment so I wouldn't have to drop the bumper to get the winch in, and I only discovered the disparity later when doing the wiring. Having mounting play in heavy devices subject to vibration and off-road abuse spells bad news to me, or at least the risk of bolts loosening and disappearing. I ordered bolt spacer sleeves (I used McMaster-Carr part # 6391K171, technically a drill bushing) to reduce the ID to 3/8" and properly locate the bolts. The powdercoating makes the ID of the hole a little tight, so just drop the sleeve on the bolt and it'll slide smoothly in place as you torque down.
I relocated my solenoid box into the driver's side engine bay, right behind the fuse box. It comes with three short 2ga cables (yellow, green, blue) and two 72" 2ga cables for mains power. I ordered a pair of 72" 0ga cables (for ground and yellow, or "A") and relocated the two long 2ga cables (green and blue, or F1 and F2). The short cables were just a bit too short to reach from the battery to the solenoid box, so I added a 2ga 35" cable from the auto parts store. If you're making one from scratch, 32" 0ga would be perfect.
Lastly, mounting the solenoid box. On the driver's side engine bay fender, just behind the fuse box, are two M8 threaded holes. Maybe something goes there on the 4cyl model, I don't know. I removed the solenoid box cover, wiggled the solenoid packs around just right until the bottom plate came off. I removed the two stock mounting screws from the plate and pounded the plate flat with a small sledge (it has some curved flanges to mate with the motor housing). I enlarged the slotted mounting hole to fit an M8 bolt, test fitted the bare plate, then marked and drilled the hole location for the second bolt. Installed two M8x20mm bolts, washers, locknuts, and fitted the solenoids back in place. Finally added all the power wires, used some large black wire loom and routed all the cables tucked along the very outside of the fuse box, battery, and behind the headlight. A dozen zipties secure the cables behind the grill and down to the winch. With the grill on, the wiring is scarcely visible.
Please don't mind the filthy engine bay, steam cleaning is on the to-do list
First off, this is a 2005 Tacoma DC/LB loooooong wheelbase truck, used for overland trips, camping, rock climbing trail access, sometimes difficult trail work. Mostly CA/AZ/NV/UT. Rear Dakar HDs with Fox adjustable shocks, Leer shell full of canned food and rock climbing gear. Front suspension still underway.
It came time for a winch and bumper and looking to save weight as much as possible, I decided on a Warn M8000 and Aluminess bumper. The Warn comes to around 50 lbs with hawse fairlead and synthetic rope (weighed it myself). The Aluminess bumper is supposedly 55 lbs, which would be about 30 lbs more than the plastic bumper and aluminum support that came off. Didn't have an opportunity to verify that. Anyway there happened to be a group deal on Tacomaworld in December so I bit. I brought the truck to Aluminess for install as I was planning to be in the area and they kindly made sure it would be ready by then. Install charge was beyond reasonable (1 hr - $65, even though they ended up spending more than 3 hours on it).
The bumper has a large central winch compartment with a locking hatch cover. The M8000 fits in there with PLENTY of room to spare. It's tempting to store stuff in there, if it can take rain and crud. There aren't any tie down features so stuff could bounce around and potentially foul the radiator or tranny cooler lines (probably not worth it). The thick plate of the recovery points form the outer walls of the compartment and are completely seam welded, big thick TIG welds. There is plenty of room either side of the hatch to drill and mount lights. The outboard sections are thinner plate and nicely shaped to my eyes. A brush hoop runs about hood height around the headlights and over the grill. The rope feed slot lines up perfect with my winch - on a level pull, it almost doesn't touch the fairlead at all inside or outside.
(with the supplied wire rope and roller fairlead, combined 40 lbs, now gone)
Mostly I want to point out a few things I noticed (any specific questions, just ask). The bumper mounts with four bolts or studs on each side, eight total. One pair of these studs mount inside the winch compartment, very near the lower corners and right next to a thick seam weld. On the other locations, Aluminess installed very large Grade 8 washers under the bolt heads or nuts. Same here, except the large washer ends up sitting cockeyed on top of the edge of the seam weld. When I inspected everything, the 400 mile trip home was enough for the nuts on these studs to have loosened to barely finger tight. You can't properly torque a nut that doesn't sit flat and even. So you'd want to inspect those nuts very carefully and find appropriate small washers so these can sit flat (I had some in a box of random parts).
One thing that concerns me - the winch compartment floor has no drain holes. The rear edge is about 1" high, and it sure looks like it'll hold a full inch of water for quite some time. That's enough to immerse the motor ground lug, and the bottom edge of the motor case. Underway, surely much of that would splash out. Should I be concerned? It would be simple to drill a couple of drain holes, but I worry about introducing spots where water etc can get under the powdercoating and cause peeling, cracking etc. Would simply painting the holes be enough to protect it? Or should I leave well enough alone?
The recent group buy on this bumper said several times that the foglight locations are sized for PIAA 510 lights. Not true - the 510s sit about 1.5" too far recessed (noticeably limiting beam spread to the inside) and about 1" too small in diameter, and mount too low in the light hole (which is just over 6" in diameter). Aluminess installed some thick washers to space them upward, but still not ideal. Don't know what lights would fit better but I'm all ears. I'm not terribly impressed by the PIAAs anyway for the price.
Here's a trick I figured out for making a heavy duty harness to mate to the factory foglight harness. Take your old 9145 foglight bulbs and carefully clip the electrical leads directly under the bulb. The bulb will now fall out with a bit of wiggling. With wirecutters or other tool, clip away at the plastic ring surrounding those wires, which will now stick up about 3/4". Twist the bare leads from your lights (the PIAA 510s have a plastic harness with giant spade connectors, I clipped them off) over the posts, and fold the wire tight over the twisted lead (and below the surface of the remaining plastic shell). Solder, and pot in place with epoxy. Presto, a durable waterproof connector.
The winch mount holes are sized for 1/2" bolts. My Warn M8000 uses 3/8" bolts (I assume the larger winches use 1/2"). Aluminess kindly mounted it in the compartment so I wouldn't have to drop the bumper to get the winch in, and I only discovered the disparity later when doing the wiring. Having mounting play in heavy devices subject to vibration and off-road abuse spells bad news to me, or at least the risk of bolts loosening and disappearing. I ordered bolt spacer sleeves (I used McMaster-Carr part # 6391K171, technically a drill bushing) to reduce the ID to 3/8" and properly locate the bolts. The powdercoating makes the ID of the hole a little tight, so just drop the sleeve on the bolt and it'll slide smoothly in place as you torque down.
I relocated my solenoid box into the driver's side engine bay, right behind the fuse box. It comes with three short 2ga cables (yellow, green, blue) and two 72" 2ga cables for mains power. I ordered a pair of 72" 0ga cables (for ground and yellow, or "A") and relocated the two long 2ga cables (green and blue, or F1 and F2). The short cables were just a bit too short to reach from the battery to the solenoid box, so I added a 2ga 35" cable from the auto parts store. If you're making one from scratch, 32" 0ga would be perfect.
Lastly, mounting the solenoid box. On the driver's side engine bay fender, just behind the fuse box, are two M8 threaded holes. Maybe something goes there on the 4cyl model, I don't know. I removed the solenoid box cover, wiggled the solenoid packs around just right until the bottom plate came off. I removed the two stock mounting screws from the plate and pounded the plate flat with a small sledge (it has some curved flanges to mate with the motor housing). I enlarged the slotted mounting hole to fit an M8 bolt, test fitted the bare plate, then marked and drilled the hole location for the second bolt. Installed two M8x20mm bolts, washers, locknuts, and fitted the solenoids back in place. Finally added all the power wires, used some large black wire loom and routed all the cables tucked along the very outside of the fuse box, battery, and behind the headlight. A dozen zipties secure the cables behind the grill and down to the winch. With the grill on, the wiring is scarcely visible.
Please don't mind the filthy engine bay, steam cleaning is on the to-do list
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sure they help keep you off the rocks, but in OZ you gotta worry about animal strikes and running down cattle more then rocks 