devinsixtyseven
Explorer
Unfortunately, as much as I like it's qualities, the ARB Sahara bar design for a Toyota Tundra is just a wee bit large for what I like to do. After Sunday's romp, and this week's planned bodywork, I've decided to part ways with the bumper before it makes the signal lamps part ways with the headlight again, or I permanently damage this nice piece of engineering (the truck or the bumper). Don't get me wrong, I'm not talking trash about the Sahara bar, it's just suited best for a slightly different purpose than what I'm doing.
It appears that only the shell of the bumper is moving, the accordian braces attached to the frame appear to be in one piece, secure, and undamaged.
Here's my idea. Remove the large shell of the ARB, retain the accordian crush brackets, and fabricate something low profile, able to mount as small a winch as possible and get the job done (Warn 9500 or similar?), with plenty of tire access to the rocks, and not as far forward as the original Sahara bar.
Here's the problem. The reason the ARB was designed so far forward was to mount a specific pair of winches (10K and 12K Warns) to this truck (6500# Tundra), hit an animal (or whatever), and drive away despite possibly crushing the winch against the radiator. It also has rubber bumpers on the front, so if you hit something solid, it's not the same tooth-jarring impact as when the truck lands on the hard-mounted sliders. I'd like to retain as much of those design elements as possible...the ARB is very well designed, but like Chris Wood mentioned a couple weeks back at the Rising Sun presentation, ARB doesn't build rock crawler bumpers. Problem is, a rock crawling bumper rarely offers impact protection to the same degree as a piece like the ARB.
What I'm looking for is a bumper that offers protection the rocks, good access angles and height to the tires, and sits as far back as possible--an offroad bumper with some onroad protection, vs an overland bumper. Mounted to the crush brackets, it'll have a little more safety margin than a hard-mounted piece...that margin of safety is why I've kept the ARB so long. It also means, if I want, I can remount the ARB for long road trips to easier trails (once I pound it out straight again!). I'm not afraid to swap a bumper now and then, I don't think mine's saleable anyway, it would be stupid to scrap it, and besides I like it.
What's the smallest winch (shortest config, from feet to the top of the housing) I could reasonably use with a 6500# truck, without doubling the line except on really bad pulls (uphill out of a gumbo mudhole full of BFRs)?
Ideas, opinions? Pictures? How to build a bumper capable of riding a rock, winching, and possibly hitting an animal (like I almost did Sunday) without killing me or wrecking the truck? Just looking for advice and ideas, not how-tos, legal instruction, or a plan...mostly interested to see/hear how others dealt with those design tradeoffs. Sorry for the long post, hope it all made sense.
Thanks all,
Sean
It appears that only the shell of the bumper is moving, the accordian braces attached to the frame appear to be in one piece, secure, and undamaged.
Here's my idea. Remove the large shell of the ARB, retain the accordian crush brackets, and fabricate something low profile, able to mount as small a winch as possible and get the job done (Warn 9500 or similar?), with plenty of tire access to the rocks, and not as far forward as the original Sahara bar.
Here's the problem. The reason the ARB was designed so far forward was to mount a specific pair of winches (10K and 12K Warns) to this truck (6500# Tundra), hit an animal (or whatever), and drive away despite possibly crushing the winch against the radiator. It also has rubber bumpers on the front, so if you hit something solid, it's not the same tooth-jarring impact as when the truck lands on the hard-mounted sliders. I'd like to retain as much of those design elements as possible...the ARB is very well designed, but like Chris Wood mentioned a couple weeks back at the Rising Sun presentation, ARB doesn't build rock crawler bumpers. Problem is, a rock crawling bumper rarely offers impact protection to the same degree as a piece like the ARB.
What I'm looking for is a bumper that offers protection the rocks, good access angles and height to the tires, and sits as far back as possible--an offroad bumper with some onroad protection, vs an overland bumper. Mounted to the crush brackets, it'll have a little more safety margin than a hard-mounted piece...that margin of safety is why I've kept the ARB so long. It also means, if I want, I can remount the ARB for long road trips to easier trails (once I pound it out straight again!). I'm not afraid to swap a bumper now and then, I don't think mine's saleable anyway, it would be stupid to scrap it, and besides I like it.
What's the smallest winch (shortest config, from feet to the top of the housing) I could reasonably use with a 6500# truck, without doubling the line except on really bad pulls (uphill out of a gumbo mudhole full of BFRs)?
Ideas, opinions? Pictures? How to build a bumper capable of riding a rock, winching, and possibly hitting an animal (like I almost did Sunday) without killing me or wrecking the truck? Just looking for advice and ideas, not how-tos, legal instruction, or a plan...mostly interested to see/hear how others dealt with those design tradeoffs. Sorry for the long post, hope it all made sense.
Thanks all,
Sean
