Hey guys. I plan on building a dual swing out tire/jerrycan/kitchen sink rear bumper for my FJ60. I have the tools necessary but not a lot of experience with such a project. The pivot points and latches are my first concerns. Secondly what gauge of metal should I use? I want it to be strong but I don't want to need a crane to mount it either. Any ideas would be appreciated. I will post a few example pictures later today. Thanks!
Help with rear bumper ideas
- Thread starter JK72450
- Start date
Influencer I
You can also find a lot of that stuff on amazon. As far as material goes, 11 gauge would be the minimum, you would need to double it up at the spindle points along with extra bracing. 3/16 is pretty much standard but it is the heavy end of the spectrum. You could also do a hybrid style using tube in some areas to save a little weight. At the end of the day though any bumper with a swing outs is heavy.
Awesome suggestions. That's the kind of advice I'm looking for. So basically I want to start with a 4"x4" square tube and make that my base. The first question would be what gauge to use for this. Everything else can be a little lighter after that I'm assuming. So 3/16 4x4 square tubing would be a good start?
Influencer I
That will be a good solid base. You could go with 1/8" wall for the swing outs. Just make sure to close off all the open ends. For the frame mounts I would either slot the tube and run the mounts inside (shear strength) or make the mounts with a large flat bend at the connection point for lots of weld. The bumper to frame mounts should be 3/8" or 1/2".
Influencer I
Feel free to pm me if you have more questions. I'm sure you've guessed by now I do this sorta stuff for a living. You could also stop by my build thread and leave a replies/questions there. https://www.overlandbound.com/forums/threads/my-tacoma-in-progress.3355/
I would recommend 0.120 wall thickness or higher, so far I haven't had any bending or cracking (fingers crossed). I pretty much followed and old article in 4wheeler for building a prerunner tube bumper. Off the top of my head 1.75" or 2" round tube for main structures and 1.5" for supports all 0.120 wall or more. I went with 2x4 tubing because of the swingout posts I bought from Ruffstuff. If I were to do it all over again I would do a double shear mount like what Relentless Fab sells. The main problem with the double bearing pivot is setting the final height of the outer bearing race (the bigger tubing attached to the swingout). To fully assemble the pivot you must press in (Or lovingly hammer in) the upper and lower bearing races, but the main issue is when you go to weld it all together. Unless you go slow I would remove the races before burning in the swingouts, I didn't have a way of doing that or the time. I eyeballed the height and adjusted it by cranking down on the castle nut lowering my bearing height. *Side note: The tolerances for the bearing races were SUPER tight, i had to waller her out a bit to set the races in but she holds and works great so far.
You can get as fancy as you desire with a bumper build, I wanted to since I have the bender but then weight became a concern and it adds up fast, so keep that in mind.
You can get as fancy as you desire with a bumper build, I wanted to since I have the bender but then weight became a concern and it adds up fast, so keep that in mind.
Thanks for the input. As obvious as it is I never really gave a lot of thought about how the quickly the weight starts adding up the more "features" you add.
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