Bored Clerk's Rear Bumper Build

I wonder if they are confusing the MFC with the MWC

 

I specified the MWC many times. And sent pictures. Because, yeah, the MWCs are about 1/4" bigger than MFCs in every dimension (odd).

 

Based on how the top plate is bent on the can holder, I can only guess that my cans are just that much taller than all the rest for some reason. I did put one of my steel water cans in the holder and it works perfectly.

 

I can measure mine if you want to know

 

That would be cool! It would be nice to have an answer. Could help CBI too.

 

Hang on

 

Base to top of handle is 18 3/4" , my MWC's are about 5 years old

 

Mine are 19". That extra quarter inch might allow the locking hole to work...barely. So, there's the issue! Thanks Oz!

 

Tuesday. In the books.

Today was water can holder day. My plan was to finish that off.


First step was to make the top plate clear the spouts on the MWCs. I clamped it in the vise and just bent it by hand.


Easy peasy. Fits great. Now I just need to cut out and raise up the divider in the can carrier.


So, two thirds of the welds were pretty easy to get with the angle grinder. The welds at the bottom were impossible to get. So, I cut off the bottom of the divider. I moved the divider up 1/2" then welded in a new piece where the gap was. You'd never know it wasn't like this from CBI...unless you actually have eyes that work. Haha.


Ta-da! Everything fits and I can now lock my water cans. Check that off the list.

Moving on...



I cleaned up all of the angle steel by cutting 45 degree angles in the ends and rounding all of the corners. Then I added a round tube brace under the can holder. It's just tacked in but that's okay, I have some finish welding and grinding to do on this swingarm anyway. I'll take it off the bumper for that because I don't want to weld upside down.

That's it for today. I wanted to get into the license plate mount but I just didn't have time. I did get some time evaluating my first concept and thinking about other options, though. We'll see...

More tomorrow!

 

Well, I got something done today. Not nearly what I wanted to get done but that's how it goes.


Took this apart and finished welding the small swingarm. Actually missed a spot but I can get to it without taking it off.


Spent the rest of the time fussing with all of this stuff. I welded on the glide plates for the swingarms, bent the UHMWPE sheet and fiddly farted around with the clamps.


Here's where I ended up. Still not sure about the clamps. I don't have really any experience with these so I'm not sure how they should feel. But, I know they're not right yet. I kind of screwed up way at the beginning of the build without realizing the ramifications that I'm dealing with now. I have 90 degree clamps. But the way everything stacks up right now, I'm not quite 90 degrees so it doesn't lock out over center quite like it should. So, now I'm modifying the clamps a little and how they mount to try to find the happy spot. I'm also still not happy with the rubber bumpers I have. They are all too soft in my book but maybe they'll be okay once I get the clamps going over center and locking out properly?

Regardless, I'm a little frustrated at this point. All the final fiddly crap is driving me nuts. I'll be back at it tomorrow at some point to fuss with it some more.

 

The last 10% takes 90% of the time. I feel like that's where I'm at. I spent ALL day working and feel like I got nothing major done.


I welded the wheel studs in place. That's good...check it off the list.



I welded these on. Check that off the list. Wait, no, put one back on the list. I forgot to weld one section on the inside of one plate. And, in case you were wondering, these are the end plates for the main bumper. The two holes in each plate are where the wrap around wings will bolt on.


I bent and cleaned up the UHMWPE sheet. It'd be nice if it was super clean on the edges but this will do just fine. If I feel like getting crazy, I'll do more on it.


I worked on the latches a lot. I trimmed them slightly to allow them to travel further and go more over center. It worked a little but it wasn't enough. So, I broke down and made it a bigger job. I welded a 1/4" thick piece of steel to the bottom of the part of the swing out that the clamp bolts to, then I used a round file to elongate the holes a 1/4" down. Yeah, 8 holes, moved 1/4" down in 1/2" steel. It sucked. It seems to have worked though! I'll clean up the holes so the clamps sit as close to perfectly vertical as I can. They seem to clamp well now.


I also mounted these up. I like them but I still don't think they're firm enough. Back to the drawing board?? I'm going to see if I can get some die springs that will work. I'm probably way overthinking this. I have some 1/2" thick stall mat that would probably be perfect.

So, that's that. It'll be another week before this has a chance of going out to powdercoat. I still have to add the spring pins that will hold the arms open at 90 degrees and I'm seriously considering adding gas assist cylinders to help with the opening on any kind of hill (side or otherwise).

Onward!

 

I haven't done much on the bumper lately. I did a little work but there's nothing to show for it just yet. I got some of the finishing pieces sent out for laser cut: spring pin mounts (to keep swing puts open to 90 degrees), wraparound end plates and some pieces I need to start mocking up my wraparound wings. I hope everything fits and works properly! I should have everything on Friday.

I also have a plate being laser cut that will be the mount for my Engel MT35 refrigerator behind the front passenger seat. It's hard to measure bolt hole locations that I'm hoping to use in the back of the truck cab so I'm sure I'll need to do some tweaking. Fingers crossed that it's close. If it's a cool little project, I'll make a thread for it.

 

Keep up the good work man. I realized I've just been reading, but not posting at all. We've got to give this thread the attention it deserves!

 

I appreciate that! I know people are watching. I'm surprised you all have the patience to follow me on a multi month journey to build a stinkin' bumper. I'm really hoping to get the main bumper wrapped up this weekend. My punch list is short. How short? So short my punch list could parachute off a dime.

 

I'm still following along.
Good work takes time, especially if you aren't in the business of running a fab shop full time. When I build things, they usually get pushed to the weekends and only after my domestic duties are completed. Keep on trucking bud!

 

It was oppressively hot here today 100 degrees. I didn't spend much time doing anything after about 10am. I did get a teeny tiny amount of work done.

I bent two brackets for the license plate mount. Pretty easy stuff but it needed to be done and I've been procrastinating a while on this for some reason.


First step is to put the first bend in. Mark your line across the metal, square it up in the vise, and bend...with a hammer in my case since I didn't feel like being fancier about it.


Use some hand pressure to pull the top of the metal while you use a hammer at the bottom of the metal to get a fairly crisp bend.


And there it is. I bent another one just like it. Well, not EXACTLY the same but it's pretty dang close.

We may go surfing in the morning or we may ditch that in favor of projects. Not sure yet. Im leaning towards projects because I want to finish this up. It's supposed to be 100 degrees again tomorrow. It's decent working until late morning when the buildings start getting heat soaked. So, there may be updates tomorrow and there may not be.

 

I say go surf. Working in the heat sucks (especially when you're working with heat like welding). I've been procrastinating building my gas can carrier for the same reason. Charlie don't surf but I'll probably take the mountain bike out tomorrow and work up a sweat before I'm sitting in ball soup for doing nothing around mid-day. Come back to it refreshed!

 

We decided to skip surfing. We were both sort of apathetic toward the idea so we bailed. The upside is that I did a little work before wearing jeans, a leather jacket, leather gloves and a welding hood became more than I cared for.

I finished up one of the spring pins used to keep the swing out open. That was exciting. Here's how that went:


Start with the spring pin, some washers and some tape.


Add the washers to the spring pin. The washers need to fit over the actual pin but not be larger in diameter than the barrel that the pin mounts into. The washers are used to space the barrel off of the plate where the spring pin will drop into. It also helps keep everything plumb.


Then wrap tape around the pin below the washers. Wrap enough tape that it just barely skids into the hole where your pin will drop into. Dont put so much tape as to need to shove the pin into the hole because you don't want the tape bunching up. The tape keeps the spring pin concentric in the hole. The tape and washers constrain the pin and barrel location so that you reduce the amount of variables and tolerance.


Weld everything in place with the spring pin and barrel located in the hole at the end of the swingarm travel. This picture shows the barrel at the beginning of its travel when the swingarm is closed. I welded this all up when the swingarm was open to 90 degrees as that's where I want it to latch onto place.


Here it is all cooled off and put back together. If you look closely, you'll see that the spring pin is in its up position. The pin is just riding on the top of the steel plate. You could opt to have the spring pin engage here as well but it seemed like more hassle than the added fail safe warranted in day to day life.


Opened to 90 degrees. Drops right into place perfectly! I mocked up the other side and found that I'll have to modify the laser cut bracket I had made because my tape measure quality measurements weren't quite right. Oh well, nothing an angle grinder can't fix!

 

Oh yeah, I also welded the license plate brackets onto my can carrier.


Not exiting to look at but nice to have done. All that's left is drilling four holes to actually mount the plate.