Aluminess front bumper questions

Anyone have an aluniness front bumper on their Tacoma ? How do you like it ? Can any one tell me if it is in fact legal in PA ? From the pictures on their web site it appears to be longer than stock and extend past the body lines. I believe that won't pass but I am not sure.
http://www.aluminess.com/trucks.htm

 

My truck is the demo for the one they are developing now. It's not complete yet but when it does believe me there will be pictures.

The one on the site was a demo and never went into production, actually sitting in their showroom floor. We hope to have it fitted on the truck in June 2010

 

Tri you went ahead and did it.. They wanted me last year to do it, i was cool with it, i just wanted the bumper in exchange for using my truck...They wanted to sell me the bumper at a discounted price ( not much of a discount for wanting to keep my truck for a week),, So i passed on it.

 

No they are just using the truck...and if I like it I will get one. This one is current being made for someone across the north border.

 

doesnt look too bad, I'd like to see what their rear bumper looks like.

 

The rear is actually on their site. They make more of an Overland Expedition style bumper. It is not made to come crushing down on the rocks but it is light and much better than stock. It is strong but just not as strong as the Heavy Steel.

 

Im a moron...I like the looks of it, minus the box,unless its a stove. I suppose it were detachable and another rack for fuel/water cans whould be cool, along with axe, shovel, hi-lift mounts. It may just be in consideration for my project.
I'd also like to see impact tests with this, since its a softer metal, I want to know how it will react with an animal/tree impact? I know road armor/ARB/TJM are beasts for testing their stuff in real world scenarios.

 

They can make the rear to what you need. Also there are some pictures of them handling punishment. I'll look for them and post them.

 

What's with the sides of the front bumper sticking out way past the fender flares? Is that supposed to be a step?

 

Once again that bumper was just a prototype. They are using my truck to redesign the bumper.

 

amazing Tri. I like!!! Perfect for keeping my 4 banger light without sacrificing strength

 

60 lbs I believe...it didn't do anything to my front suspension...It is still in the testing phase. But only to make it stronger.

 

The bars are brushguards...if you look at Shrockworks and ARB they are the same. You can get it without if Expedition style is not for you. They are strong but not like steel strong. But you weights about 1/3 of a steel one.

ARB 175lbs
Aluminess 60lbs

Some pictures of the Shrockworks

 

thats normal. It gives the bars a chance to give a bit instead of hugging the body and when you hit something have it go into the truck.

Its not a bad thing and pictures dont give it justice. I wish i had a bumper like this Thursday when i went on a run up gold mountain trail here in big bear. Got a little tight lol

 

ARBs stick out quite a bit too.

 

Topping this thread. I got in on the group deal and just had mine installed a couple days ago on a swing through San Diego. Thanks Aluminess!

Now to the question. The winch sits in a compartment with a raised lip around the bottom of it, about 1" deep. I'm concerned about water pooling in here and corroding the negative motor terminal and the case joint. There's no drain holes at all.

Seems like no trouble to drill a couple of big holes in the bottom plate to allow drainage, but will that screw up the powdercoating? Allowing moisture underneath and cause peeling etc? Is there some way to seal the drilled edge back up? Thick paint? Or am I overthinking this and should just leave it be?

 

Might was well post a mini review here since my bumper/winch is fully installed and wired up now.

The bumper was installed at Aluminess's shop near San Diego for a very reasonable price. It mounts with four bolts or studs on each side, eight total. One pair of these studs mount inside the winch compartment, very near the lower corners and right next to a thick seam weld. On the other locations, Aluminess installed very large Grade 8 washers under the bolt heads. Same here, except the large washer ends up sitting cockeyed on top of the edge of the seam weld. When I inspected everything, the 400 mile trip home was enough for the nuts on these studs to have loosened to barely finger tight. You can't properly torque a nut that doesn't sit flat and even. So you'll want to inspect those nuts very carefully and find appropriate small washers so these can sit flat (I had some in a box of random parts).

The recent group buy on this bumper said several times that the foglight locations are sized for PIAA 510 lights. Not true - the 510s sit about 1.5" too far recessed and about 1" too small in diameter, and mount too low in the light hole. Aluminess installed some thick washers to space them upward, but still not ideal. Don't know what lights would fit better but I'm all ears. I'm not terribly impressed by the PIAAs anyway for the price.

Here's a trick for making a heavy duty harness to mate to the factory foglight harness. Take your old H10 foglight bulbs and carefully clip the electrical leads directly under the bulb. The bulb will now fall out with a bit of wiggling. With wirecutters or other tool, clip away at the plastic ring surrounding those wires. Twist the bare leads from your lights (the PIAA 510s have a plastic harness with giant spade connectors, I clipped them off) over the posts, and fold the wire tight over the twisted lead. Solder, and pot in place with epoxy (or just wrap tight with lots and lots of electrical tape). Presto, factory-quality waterproof connection. Ziptie the extra cable securely out of the way.

The winch mount holes are sized for 1/2" bolts. My Warn M8000 uses 3/8" bolts (I assume the larger winches use 1/2"). Aluminess kindly mounted it in the compartment so I wouldn't have to drop the bumper to get the winch in, and I only discovered the disparity later when doing the wiring. If this concerns you (I like to have details like this fully buttoned down) you can order spacer sleeves (for instance McMaster-Carr part # 6391K171) to reduce the ID to 3/8" and properly locate the bolts. You'll have to hammer them into place from below as the powdercoating makes the ID of the hole a little tight.

I relocated my solenoid box into the driver's side engine bay, right behind the fuse box. It comes with three short 2ga cables (yellow, green, blue) and two 72" 2ga cables for mains power. I ordered a pair of 72" 0ga cables (for ground and yellow, or "A") and relocated the two long 2ga cables (green and blue, or F1 and F2). The short cables were just a bit too short to reach from the battery to the solenoid box, so I added a 2ga 35" cable from the auto parts store. If you're making one from scratch, 32" 0ga would be perfect.

Lastly, mounting the solenoid box. On the driver's side engine bay fender, just behind the fuse box, are two M8 threaded holes. Maybe something goes there on the 4cyl model, I don't know. I removed the solenoid box cover, wiggled the solenoid packs around just right until the bottom plate came off. I removed the two stock bolts and pounded the plate flat with a small sledge (it has some curved flanges to mate with the motor housing). I enlarged the slotted mounting hole to fit an M8 bolt, test fitted the bare plate, then marked and drilled the hole location for the second bolt. Installed two M8x20mm bolts, washers, locknuts, and fitted the solenoids back in place. Finally add all the power wires. Used some large black wire loom and routed all the cables tucked along the very outside of the fuse box, battery, and behind the headlight. A dozen zipties secure the cables behind the grill and down to the winch. With the grill on, the wiring is scarcely visible.

Supposedly the bumper weighs 7 lbs more than the stock bumper assembly. The M8000 weighs 74 lbs (I assume not including wire rope and roller fairlead, though it's not clear). I got 100' of Technora synthetic line and weighed it too. 100' of 5/16" stock wire rope + Warn hook: 28.5lbs. Stock roller fairlead: 11.5lbs. 100' 3/8" Technora + hook: 8.5lbs. Aluminum hawse fairlead: 2.5 lbs. Amount saved 29lbs. Total added weight (I didn't have the opportunity to weigh the bumper so I'll have to take their word for it): +7 bumper, +74 winch, +11 rope and lead = +92 lbs. Just FYI.

Other than that, it looks nice and I like it. The welds around the winch box and the recovery points are full seam welds and are properly fat and thick. The outer plates are spot welded together. The brush guards around the headlights are visible from the cab and jiggle a little on choppy bumps. The rope feed slot lines up perfect with my winch - on a level surface, it almost doesn't touch the fairlead at all inside or outside. Haven't gone off road yet but approach angle and clearance in front of the tires is much, much improved.

 

Added the Lightforce 170 Striker to the Aluminess Bumper.