Front bumper build

Hey everyone!

I’ve been reading the posts here for a while, I’m just not really the talkative type, so I never post anything. Figured I should start somewhere. So I thought I’d show my bumper build.

I’m a welder and I have access to a CNC plasma cutter at work so I bought a dxf file for a bumper online. Tweaked it a little. Here’s what I’ve done so far.

The center portion bent, welded, and ground.


The side wings in progress


The inside with the wings welded on.


The main portion completed on truck with light bar.


I’m currently working on building a bush guard to protect the grill and headlights. I’ll post pictures of it as I go. Sorry I didn’t take more pictures of the build.

 

Nice work OP.

 

Great first post.

Nice work, the only design choice I don't agree with is the lack of some kind of major upper hoop assembly to give better protection for headlights, and particularly the radiator, against deer/wild animal impacts.

 

He said in his post he’s working on that and will post pictures as he goes. Looks great so far!

 

Looking good, keep us posted!!

 

Thanks guys! Yeah I’m actually working on the bush guard/hoops right now. Had some friends over for the weekend so I didn’t get anything done. I have 1 3/4” round tube I’m using. It was scrap I picked up, but the good thing is it has bends in it already. Not exact 90 degrees but it’s close enough to work

 

So, didn’t get a lot done today. Got the bush guard started. Going to add some reinforcements to the center.

 

Are those straight butt welds (or rather, will they be)? Any rosette/plug/reinforcing material at those joints?

Either way, awesome effort you've put in so far. Looks pretty good.

 

I’m just doing butt welds for the center bar. I’m a qualified welder with 220v industrial MIG welder, so not worried about the welds. Gonna grind out the weld, or at least the top, bottom, and front. Might leave the back. But I will be adding supports from the front bends down to the bumper. I’m thinking that will be enough for supports. I’ll decide after if I need to add more to it, but it should be enough.

 

Looking good sir!

 

Well, I’m done with all the fab work. It’s not perfect, but I’m an avid off-roader and I’m pretty rough on the truck so, no point in getting stupid picky with it. All that’s left is to clean, prime and paint. That’s tomorrow’s job. I got black rhino liner for it. I’ll see how well it holds up. Been thinking about rhino lining the truck. This’ll be a good test.

 

Not sure why it keeps adding in my first photo at the end as well….. sorry about that

 

Looks great, nice work!

 

Well the bumper is done. Need to wait a week for the bed liner to completely dry, so I don’t have pics of it on the truck. Also these pics are a little deceiving because of the light, and I did another coat over top of that one, so it actually looks a little better than the pics. Anyway here it is (upside down).





I can throw up pics next week of it on the truck, with winch and light bar installed if y’all want to see it. Oh and I’m going to build some brackets to reinforce the mounts as well. It only mounts to the factory bumper studs, and that’s just held up by thin plate, 1/8 at best. Not really meant for that much weight, and like I said before I off-road the truck. So I’m going to reinforce it. I’m basically copying the ARB bumper I have on another Tacoma. They have extra mounts. So there is a little more work to do.

 

What was your paint prep & prime process? What product(s) did you use?

 

So all the parts were sandblasted before welding. Not exactly necessary but I used some older scrap pieces that were very rusty and I had access to a sand blaster, so why not. A wire wheel or a flap disk on an angle grinder would also have worked.

Once all the bending, welding and grinding was done, I used degreaser and a rag to clean the bumper. Any kind of degreaser or mineral spirits would work.

I used self etching primer in aerosol can to prime the bare metal. The directions for the bed liner I used said to use self etching primer. The Brand I used was Rust-oleum.

The main coat was rapter bed liner. Pretty happy with it overall. Used their pneumatic paint gun. Worked great.

 

Looks great

 

Well the bumper is officially done and on the truck.







The last picture shows one of the brackets I built to reinforce the mounts.

 

It's no ebay bull bar... but guess it will do.

 

Really awesome man you should be proud ! Thanks for sharing