Thanks

Yeah, I am going back and rebuilding the picture links. Not exactly sure what happened. They have been fine for months....now just shows up as file location. weird

 

I had another idea bouncing around in my head and I wanted to get it designed to see how it would look.
I thought i would try to make a baja style light bar for the disco and started looking a pics to get some design ideas.

Now this is still concept and my actual measurements are probably off, but the lights are pretty accurate for this purpose. They are a knock off ARB Led Intensity 9"

Here is the progress so far.

Pros and cons......let me have em!













I started heading this direction because of the type of terrain that i would mostly encounter......WOODs.

The thought of having lights exposed to low hanging limbs only to knock them off seems.....well dumb. So I added that upper cross tube to act as a upper guard to protect them.
Anyways, still would need to come up with some sort of gutter clamp and work on the cosmetics a little more, but the main parts are there.

 

The main issue I see is wind noise. LED technology resulted in the replacement of large round reflectors for point light source with an array of emitters. The lower-profile arrays allow for better clearance, more even saturation, and less wind noise. I can't think of an advantage to those large round arrays other than that they're aesthetically evocative of the old-school HID and halogen beams.

 

Cool, made my first set of dimple dies.
This die is for a 1" hole. I was able to make a good dimple in a piece of 11ga (.120") steel.
Now time to start on the rest of the dies......

 

I have had some more "free" time at work and was able to get started on some design ideas for my front bumper. Again, this is more of a concept and I still need to get actual measurements for frame mounts, overall width, etc.

Again, pros and cons about this.

 

Here is another design concept of the same bumper but with a stinger / brush guard.

 

I have a bumper like that, with the bars. I think I would prefer it without the bars, and I've considered cutting them off. It's just the aesthetic. I think when I started out, I wanted the really off-road looking romper stomper. Max lift, mud tires, tubes and bars, winch and all. I actually use all my stuff. I have other vehicles for when I'm not driving offroad. I don't live in the city, and there's no malls. But still, after owning it for almost six years now, I think I would dial it down a bit. Although I mostly use it to drive local trail, I've done some adventure travel with it. If I do more of that, I'll feel better if it blends a little better.

As much as I'd like to dial the looks back, I use my winch, and the long-travel of the 3" lift, and my roofrack. I have been able to switch to AT's and like I wrote, considered cutting off the big birdcage on the front bumper. I'm also going to forgo adding any giant light racks.

My advice isn't to make the same choices as me, but consider them as some input. Also, see if you can set the winch and bumper as far into the grill as possible so you give up the least amount of approach angle. You'll also want to use a synthetic line and a hawse fairlead because those rollers really stick out.

 

So here is a question for all of you....how thick should the main parts of the bumper be?
I have it designed around 3/16" thk steel.
It seems that I have seen most bumper of this style using that material.

RTE has their bumpers using 1/4"

Tactical Rovers is 3/16"

I just talked to my sheet metal guy who has done the work for HLC Fab bumpers. He stated that it would be best to stay away from the 1/4". I tend to agree as it seems like a lot of unnecessary weight.

I will probably start tearing off the front bumper soon so I can start designing the mounts for it and getting good measurements. After that, I will start making cardboard templates so i can test fit the parts before I start burning metal.

 

1/4" is unnecessary weight, it's also ineffective at absorbing impact so it transfers it to the frame and bends the frame, and it's also harder to work with cold-rolled on a press brake as it keeps a lot more residual stress.

Automotive designers with more sophisticated tooling are able to go thinner, stiffer, lighter, stronger using more complex shapes. The type of plate design you have drawn works fine at 3/16" but you could also consider multiple thicknesses.

It depends on how you intend to use it. I have a similar design 3/16" bumper. I can lift the vehicle under the wings with a jack, but I would never do that because it just unloads the suspension. I almost always lift the vehicle on the axle or wheel. I really don't get the point of unloading the suspension with a Hi-Lift, and so I could care less if my bumper can be used to lift the vehicle.

I do care about recovery points. The 3/16" front plate on mine was slightly tweaked during a tow job. I had hooked up a 20K lb. strap to both recovery points. The tow vehicle driver started to pull away, spun tires, hit the pavement and took off at high speed. They broke the strap. They didn't know what they were doing. You could say they were an idiot, but most inexperienced people make mistakes in recovery. It's pretty common and you should expect it. You do what you can to avoid it, but don't count on it never happening. So that 3/16" plate was tweaked maybe 50 thou. I had reinforced the points with very thick grade-8 washers, but it could have been even stronger.

I've done a lot of winching, but the winch doesn't create shock loads like that when properly used. The bumper is held to the frame with four grade-8 through bolts in double-shear. It seems plenty strong.

I've bumped rock obstacles with the bumper, and scuffed paint. Paint is essential. I hate powdercoating on a part like this that will get scratched.

The bumper I have is made of 3/16" Pickled and Oiled steel. It's less costly than cold-rolled, and easier to work (less internal stress), and there's no mill scale.

 

I bought a hil-lift jack 14 years ago and its been great for removing fence posts, otherwise it just sits in the shed.