made it! and got gear to boot!

[Schattenjager]

Well, I am typing this from my new base camp in Colorado. :wings: The journey from Alaska was long but beautiful. I stopped in Tacoma WA to have an ARB bull bar and OME Heavy Duty suspension installed. The truck rides great, and while these new gen Tacoma's can't match the previos truck's good looks, I am very pleased with how it turned out. An odd thing about the ARB bumper - there are no - as in zero - recovery points. Not even a place for D shackles, so they bolted the Toyota hooks back on. We all were kind of amazed. I guess these Tacoma's can't get stuck?!? Here are a couple of pics: one BEFORE then the money shots...

 

[RAM5500 CAMPERTHING]

Looks Great!

 

[Willman]

Right on!!!

Glad to see that everything worked out good!

 

[mountainpete]

Looks great! :wings:

Which lights did you pick?

Pete

 

[DaveInDenver]

Truck looks great! I happen to like the look of the new Tacoma, personally.

Not even a place for D shackles, so they bolted the Toyota hooks back on.

This doesn't surprise me, Some ARB bumpers have tabs with holes in them, but their purpose isn't recovery, rather a place to double the winch line back. ARB came into town and gave our club a demo and what he said was that the problem with having a place to hook the winch cable back on the bumper would mean that the bumper mount would have to handle twice the winch force. So a 8000 lbs winch would pull at the mounts with 16,000 lbs of force with the winch doubled back with a snatch pulley to the bumper. The bumper itself would be fine, but the crush cans for the air bag equipped bumpers would fail. So ARB could not put anything on the bumper that you can hook to and the only safe place would be the original tow hooks, which are bolted to the frame. Basically the message I got was if the mount (thus the air bag compatible crush cans) could be made to handle the force, then the bumper would have hook tabs. If not (as apparently the Taco bar), then it would not. Something to also think about with respect to recovery, maybe only trust the original tow hooks for that and don't modify the bumper for shackle mounts?

 

[adventureduo]

Looks really clean! Weird on the tow points!? Dave, i thought the shackle points were for "lifting" only. For use with the adapter. Even though i see ARB recover with these same points with a d-shackle in their own catalog lol.

 

[DaveInDenver]

Looks really clean! Weird on the tow points!? Dave, i thought the shackle points were for "lifting" only. For use with the adapter. Even though i see ARB recover with these same points with a d-shackle in their own catalog lol.

That's true, too, but the bars they are making now have built with a rolled section in the middle that you can use your Hi Lift without the adapter (pointing to them in the attached photo). As far as using the tabs for recovery, I don't think it's unsafe, just that they aren't necessarily optimal being thin as they are. Mine have bent doing that and it's probably not good to have all that force concentrated on the shackle by a thin piece, either.

The D-ring thing, I was told (not by ARB) that it's a good practice to leave them there so that if you smash your bumper into something, the holes don't get crushed flat, which would be a huge PITA if you need them for a winch hook or to lift your truck. True? I have no idea.

 

[adventureduo]

Gotcha. I've owned a ARB on my XJ and my 80 series Toyota. I've used both with d-shackles for recovery without a problem. That being said, i've also bent and mangled the hell out of the XJ loop holes. They can only take so much... as mentioned they are thin and that's not their exact purpose. However they do work. The correct application would be to get a pair of d-shackle mounting plates with proper graded hardware and mount them to the ARB like this: Correct way is on the right, the stock ARB locations are on my rig on the left..

Expedition exchange sells the d-shackle with the plates.

 

[Schattenjager]

Looks great! :wings:

Which lights did you pick?

Pete

Thanks for the kind words fellas. The lights are LightForce 170's setup with spot on the left and "narrow" flood on the right to illuminate the critters waiting to test their luck.

There are some interesting ideas re: recovery ponts. I might add one of these to the frame, just hate to drill into the important bits, ya know?

 

[adventureduo]

Thats exactly what the rig on the right handside is using.. he used the bumper face as a mounting place.. not drilling into the frame.

 

[Schattenjager]

I thought of welding the crush cans into something more usable, but just can't see the logic in messing with that design. That is why i thought of the frame... any other ideas?

 

[DaveInDenver]

I thought of welding the crush cans into something more usable, but just can't see the logic in messing with that design. That is why i thought of the frame... any other ideas?

The crush cans are there for a reason. ARB supposedly crash tests vehicles fitted with them and they will operate the same as a stock vehicle. If you beef them up, it's tough to know how they will react. Do they go off with a tap to a shopping cart or will they not go off at all in an accident? My guess is without the crush cans they'd might go off at very slow speeds or too soon in a wreck. Hard to tell.

 

[ssmathis]

Truck looks great and welcome to Colorado. Did you get the 885 or 886 coils?

Scott

 

[Schattenjager]

Used the 885 as I have no plans for a winch. Seems like a lot of weight to carry around for a DD, so I'll high-lift it or go with friends... :costumed-smiley-007 I used the full "Dakar" pack for the rear. It is pretty amazing how well it rides empty and how it also holds a load. This trailer must have weighed 3X it's capasity and as you can see - zero sag!

 

[Jacket]

Looks really nice! I just installed the same bumper on my 06 last week (so I might be biased).:wings:

Where'd you end up in Colorado? A permanent relocation?