Tacoma high clearance rear bumper build

[ILuvtheMountains]

Done. 4/28/14-6/17/15
417days

[ccbruin]

That's a ton of weight! IRC your using a lot of 1/4" plate, I would only use that on the mounts personally.

[ILuvtheMountains]

I am using tube in my new design and most of it was going to be 1/4 but I think that, as you said, will be overkill. I don't think that I need another redesign, but I will decrease the thickness of almost everything.

[Funrover]

While I love overkill, 1/4" is a tad to much. I know from personal experience.

[gm4x4lover]

Is that including the wheel and tire? Aaron just built that front winch bumper out of plate and if I remember correctly it was only 83 lbs.

[ILuvtheMountains]

Nope, not including the tire and wheel. I think if I take the thickness down by half on almost everything that will be able to shave nearly shave nearly half the weight.

[Robert B]

id be interested to see the design and how it got that high lol

[ExplorerTom]

My bumpers are 3/16" plate and weigh about 90-100 lbs front and 100-110 rear (no tire or gas can).

[Max]

The rear Jeep bumper I was looking at is about 120 with no wheel and tire.

[Rick]

NativeTaco previously posted:

[ILuvtheMountains]

Rick previously posted:

[ccbruin]

You were going to use 1/4" tubing? That's crazy overkill, that's lower long arm material! .120" wall is plenty strong for a bumper and that's what I use for most of mine.

[ILuvtheMountains]

Okay, so I went down to .120" tubing for much of my design, other than the places where I expect the bumper to hit/drag on the ground during steep climbs/descents/ coming off ledges and got the weight down to 142lbs. Keep in mind that I am making a bumper that goes across the rear of the vehicle (duh) but also wraps around and goes right up to behind the rear wheel wells (30" on each side). The width of the rear is 67" and with those two sides totaling another 60", I am almost making two bumpers. That is why it has so much weight. I will likely be adding another leaf to my leaf packs to handle the extra weight and the redistribution of weight toward the rear of the vehicle.

[gm4x4lover]

NativeTaco previously posted:

[ILuvtheMountains]

Excellent point. The main structural parts that tie into the frame will match oem materials so that should be good, I figured anyway. The only parts that are going to be more than 1/8 are those on the bottom, so that should give breakaway zones but still have years of dragging it over rocks before any holes show up.

[Cr33p3r]

Even with you reduction in weight that is still 1/8 the total weight of my exo cage I built on the ranger. Some good points have been addressed especially the one of at some point something somewhere has to give if not the bumper. Over kill can be a good thing if applied to the right areas like the mounts to the frame and also where your pivot point will be for the tire swing. Can you post a picture of your design to give us a better idea of the bumper and maybe we can better help with the strong and weak points of it.

[ILuvtheMountains]

There is actually a huge problem with my design now. I never thought about how heavy the tire/wheel combo will be when swinging over. I was trying to avoid the extra space needed behind the truck by a swing out so I designed for a swing over. Everything looked great, I went and bought steel yesterday and now I realized that my wife would probably not be able to get the tire back to a closed position. CRAP! I am trying to think of simple mechanical advantage I can incorporate. If not I may have to change stuff up to use a standard swingout design. Not sure you will be able to see this very well but here goes:

[ILuvtheMountains]

That round feature is the spindle. The dust cap is facing you. These drawings don't include the actual arm that has the tire on it. The flat spot to the left and right of the spindle is where the arm would have sat to take weight off of get spindle when open and closed.

[Cr33p3r]

From looking at the drawing I would say with the tire on it it could easily weigh close to your original weight. So I understand correctly your tire was going to swing out or down?

[ILuvtheMountains]

Swing in an arc from left to right. I think I am going to have to go to a normal swingout though. I can't believe I overlooked the weight issue on the moving part. My most recent design has much less material and simple swingout. Sorry for giving you guys such a difficult path to follow with the idea change but I will draft out this new one and repost it.