its not the hottest looking bumper, but it does the job which is most the battle when dealing with off roading. give the bumper a little paint job and i think you will be just fine. Some of the most beastly off road truck are the uglyist

 

Thanks to everyone who offered suggestions and criticism.

I figured out how to rebuild it more the way I wanted it and the pics are at http://www.tombarcia.net/bumper just like last time. The old pics are still there for comparison. I wasn't singing "u-g-l-y you ain't got no aliby" while making this one and I think it came out much better than the first. Again, let me know what you think.

 

i think it looks good, like how ya got it to match the lines of the grill/lights. i would have went with a little bigger tubing though.

 

Thanks. I was worried about how it would work with the grill, and I'm happy with how it worked out.

 

Looks good...

I like it...

 

Looking alot better.. Any reason you didnt make something more similar to carl's?
I like how his protects the winch. Of course you can always add on to yours....

Rand

 

not my type

 

Looks better Tom. You thinking of running a support from the edge to where the winch attaches? Or maybe some diagnol supports to fill that gap?

 

If I torched off the tow hook mount to make something like Carl's, then I was going to hide the winch behind the bumper but I don't have a piece of steel plate large enough to make that mount. Once I have the material, I may go that route, but if the winch is behind the bumper, then Carl's style won't do me much good.

I'm going to do something to fill the gaps, I'm just not sure what yet. I'm definitely running at least one vertical support outboard of the smaller lights so I can add shackle mounts even tho they'll only be cosmetic and will probably run another support at the corner. That way, if I decide to fill the gap with sheetmetal, I'll have something at the edge to attach to and won't have to try to make that wierd bend.

 

I'm w/ Bubba on this one.. I can tolerate butt-ugly in the name of function, but that doesn't look like its the best for off-roading. Maybe theres more to it than the pictures show, tho.

 

It acomplishes several things that I need to do. First, it allow me to move the winch back several inches which takes some of the load off the front end plus the whole thing weighs about the same as the old winch mount so when you subtract the weight of the stock bumper, it takes even more load off the front end. Plus, this bumper gives me a place to mount all of my lights while protecting the lower ones from things I might run into on the trail.

In all, while it's not the best looking bumper, it does acomplish all of the things I need it to do and when it's done hopefully it'll look a little better. It's a work in progress and eventually I'll get around to finishing it.