Addicted Off-Road Bumper Install.
he's my bother. heard about the work stuff. we need to go on a trip. we have a good group of expo rigs in concord/walnut creek area. what other plans for the rig? I'm working on my storage/sleeping platform and a bunch of other stuff that never ends.
Good stuff! I'd love to go on some runs with more experienced folks. As for future plans, I've got to install the winch and throw in a deep cycle battery. After that, I'll have to decide whether or not to add a leaf spring to the rear spring pack. The truck was sitting a little tail-heavy until I got the new bumper installed, and now it appears pretty close to level. I'll wait and see how it sits after the winch is in. To install that winch, though, I'll have to notch out or replace the grille to make room for the infeed/outfeed lever on top of the winch I have.
The rack I'm using to hold up the awning and the tent is not the final answer, either. I realized after my shakedown trip that I'll need some protection from the elements, and so I'm on the lookout for a roll-up tonneau cover, and I'll be taking a welding class so I can fab up my own cage/rack system for the tent. I've got to figure out a solution for storing spare fluids and parts and such, so a low-profile toolbox for the bed is in order. I don't know if I'll spend the time searching for one, or if I'll just buckle down and modify one to sit below the level of the bedrail.
@stclair: Wow, you really pulled the trigger on that suspension purchase! I'm glad to hear that you've progressed beyond the analysis portion of your build. Now comes the painful, frustrating, and most satisfying part of it.
-=-
Today, I got the bumper installed. Ran into some issues, but nothing my brother and I couldn't work past. As is to be expected, installing a new part kind of brought forth a new problem with an old part. It's all good, though. I'll just have to figure out some solutions to these new first-world problems. And speaking of first-world problems, the guys at Addicted Off-Road never responded to my query about the missing light tabs. This bumper might be the first and last thing I order from those guys. There was a two-month lead time from order to delivery, and then no light tabs (as advertised), and no follow-up. Your results may vary, but my experience with those guys has been a little crummy.
Everything's loaded up in the back of the truck to bring to my brother's shop.
Got the plastic bumper cover off.
Metal bumper is off, and now removing the existing crossmember.
Not sure what this little dingle-dangle is, but we covered it with foil to protect it from sparks and slag. Also, it mounted to the old bumper, so I had to find it a new home after the install.
These all-threads are what the old bumper was mounted to. I tried backing them out of their threaded holes, but then I ran out of f*cks to give, so I ground them flat.
Going in for a dry fit.
Whoops! Need to take this little strut off. Nothing critical mounted to it, just the top edge of the plastic bumper cover.
Now
that's a dry fit!
Uh oh, that's a lot of daylight between the crossmember and the frame. My brother just stitched it together and filled it with a LOT of wire.
A little surface prep.
We used these clamps to mark the bottom limit of the crossmember, and then just pitched the whole thing forward and backwards until everything was lined up, according to my highly calibrated ocular calipers.
And then we got so busy that I stopped taking pictures. Here's an underexposed photograph of the final product.
Then I trimmed away some of the exposed wheel well liner and took another photograph where the dynamic range was too great for the iPhone's sensor.
Notes on the bumper install:
1. One of the holes in the mounting plate of the bumper was not lined up correctly with the threaded hole on the cross member. We had to gore out the hole with a step drill bit, but after that, it was fine.
2. The clearance between the winch plate and the bottom of the grille on the hood is roughly 7.5". Account for this when choosing a winch, or just understand that it'll take some modification to make a taller winch fit in that space.
3. The bumper is heavy. Not so heavy that you couldn't move it around by yourself, but heavy enough that installation would have been a major PITA if my brother's shop didn't have an overhead hoist. And speaking of hoists...
4. Protect your finish with rags, the skin of your slain enemies, or whatever else is handy when hoisting this bumper up. I managed to booger up the super-awesome paint job during the installation today. I also touched up the super-awesome paint job with more of the hammered-finish rattlecan paint when I got home, but still, a little extra care goes a long way.
5. Use an
angle finder or similar device. It's way better than eyeballing level and saying, "EhhhhhhhhhhhhhGOOD ENOUGH." Which I may have done. Okay, I definitely did.
6. I have the Off-Road TRD package, and one of the cool-guy OEM things that Toyota installed is a front skid plate. That skid plate mounted to the old cross member, so I'll have to solve that problem, but not right now.
