Corax's 1st gen RN61 4runner

[RBx]

snip....
How cool would it be to have one winch that can work in the front or back?

Uh...real cool?

I need to see more of this design. I have my rear hitch/tire carrier/bumper almost finished, and going to start on the front. I'm relocating my batteries under the truck, and while i'm at it, wire for a rear winch quick-disconnect i'm thinking.

 

[corax]

I need to see more of this design. I have my rear hitch/tire carrier/bumper almost finished, and going to start on the front. I'm relocating my batteries under the truck, and while i'm at it, wire for a rear winch quick-disconnect i'm thinking.

The full build is here: http://www.ultimateyota.com/index.php?option=com_smf&Itemid=26&topic=177.0 (same as what's linked above, in case you missed it)

 

[RBx]

sorry, i didn't see that before....very slick....now i have a much better idea of how to design one.

 

[corax]

I'm not a "big stereo" person and see no need for the people next to me to hear what I'm listening to, but with the rear storage box and everything crammed in on the sides, the rear speakers were getting pretty muffled. I was just about to start in on building a thin plywood speaker box to sandwich the rear roll bar and move the speakers higher when I decided to (gasp) SEARCH, and found a thread on another forum that gave me some ideas. So instead of the plywood, I decided to hit up my favorite big box store for some plumbing supplies. This is what I'm going to build off of - it's a 6" floor drain grate. The inner diameter is 5 3/8" and the outer flange diameter is 6 3/4" so a 6.5" speaker should fit perfect.

grill cut out and ready for a speaker

All of the mounts are some form of 90 degree bracket. The rear and front bottom use one side of a 2" u-bolt to attach to the roll bar. The upper front uses the back side of the upper shoulder belt attachment. The speaker magnet is flush with the end of the 6" drain grate. Because there's not much room behind that and the trim, I'm leaving it as a "free air" speaker. The marine speakers I picked up have 2 sets of mounting holes, 1 set is on a smaller diameter than the other and this set matched the pipe wall itself. So I carefully predrilled the mounting holes and ran the 1.5" screws down the pipe wall (no sharp screw tips sticking out).

there's less than 1/8" between the hi-lift and the speaker grill, but it fits

The rear's sound better but not quite as loud as before since they're just running off the head unit. So now I'm wondering if I should have pulled the mini-amplifiers off of the original speakers and connected them to the new speakers. BTW, the head unit is pushing 52W max to these speakers (speakers rated @ 30W nominal, 160W max)

 

[RBx]

Funny, when i was reading your thread i immediately thought of the thread you referenced. Looks nice.
I did this..
Mainly because i want them hidden so when i park the truck without a top, they are stealthy, and i can hear them great, as well as my passengers. I haven't finished the interior panel yet.

 

[DaveInDenver]

Cool. I wouldn't be too worried about someone seeing them, they just look like fans at first glance.

 

[NorCalBorn]

Need's one of these in the dash now?

 

[corax]

I figure it's time for a new project and with some of the organizations I'm trying to get involved with a winch bumper is in order. I'm modeling the base of it off Robinhood4x4's bumper build - I really dig his multi-mount functionality. That takes care of the center part / winch mount, I still have to decide on what I want to do with the wings. Excuse the poor google Sketch Up renderings, but this is what I have so far. I could easily build another tube bumper, something like this

and mocked up to a 2nd gen pickup since I couldn't find a pre-made 4runner model (ignore the factory bumper)

Or I was thinking of making a tube bumper and then fiberglassing between the tubes to make front storage compartments. The finished product would look something like this, the lateral lines off the center section would be tube - the 2 lowest tubes being 1.5" and the 2 upper ones just 1"

I couldn't get the planes to fill in on the bumper quite right, but hopefully this'll give some kind of idea what it'd look like covered

So what'cha think? Should I go with plain tube or try to build something a bit different with fiberglass over a tube framed bumper?

This is how far I got today. I picked up a 1/4 plate remnant and started on the center part of the bumper. Here it is all laid out and ready to get cut

After a few hours with the Sawzall, grinder and HF Welder (just to tack it together). I'll take it to work and use their welder to burn the final welds in - every gusset and plate is getting welded on both sides. I also need to add the center gussets once the receiver box is fully welded in, I'm adding one mounting bolt in the center of the crossmember (which is already reinforced with Front Range Offroad's 1/4" plate frame brace

)

 

[NorCalBorn]

"Honest, I don't know how the picnic table caught on fire..." :coffeedrink:

 

[corax]

"Honest, I don't know how the picnic table caught on fire..." :coffeedrink:

Meh, the paint's just a little discolored - I did catch the grass on fire while I had the cutout wheel working though :ylsmoke:

 

[corax]

I'm pretty sure I'm going with the tube design using 1.5" HREW schedule 40. The only snag is that my HF pipe bender is at the front of my trailer on the floor . . . the trailer's currently packed up to about eye level, so there's literally half a ton of crap that needs to get moved out to liberate the bender for about an hour's worth of work. I'd love to find someone local that's willing to bend the tube for me without having to specify the angles of the different bends - in other words, bend a bit, hold it up to the truck, bend a bit more, etc.

So I finished up the center section of my bumper. I decided to angle the inner gussets to help with any side loads I might generate. Luckily, the receiver cradle only tightened up about 1/32" after I was done welding so there was minimal grinding needed (only at the front by the main plate.

 

[corax]

So how's this look for a headlight guard model? The main tubes off the winch plate are going to be 1.5" sch 40 pipe which is 1.9" OD. The guards will be smaller 1" sch 40 with an OD of 1.3" The angle back on them should work to lift branches and I don't think I'll regret not having a higher center hoop that way. I'll probably match the overall height of the guards with the front edge of the hood - in sketchup, they look a bit too tall.

(please note the scale and centering is a bit off because the bumper isn't actually "attached" to the truck in google sketchup, just kinda hovering in front of it)

 

[corax]

I made a little bit of progress on it today. The main bars are bent and tacked into place well enough to transport it into work so I can finish weld them (and heat bend the far passenger side about 1" up to match the other side). Then I'll fab the lower tubes that bolt to the side of the frame and connect with the main tube at the side

BTW, I also figured out a simple solution for the "dimples" that my HF bender leaves in pipe. Here's an example from my old bumper - see the dimple just above the turn signal?

The fix was simple - I got a threaded pipe nipple big enough to fit over the 1.5" sch 40, cut in in half length wise and placed between the pipe and rollers. Now when I'm bending, the pressure isn't localized and there are no more dimples

 

[ADIGA]

MaAaN!

i just want to say you rock! :wings:
it seems that am gonna steel some ideas from your truck to put in mine's ...
keep the great awesome work..

 

[corax]

i just want to say you rock! :wings:
it seems that am gonna steel some ideas from your truck to put in mine's ...
keep the great awesome work..

Thanks man. Use whichever ideas you want and improve on them where you can - a lot of my stuff was inspired by other people's projects, I just modified or tweaked things to suit me better.