Homemade rear bumper hitch question

I'm building a rear bumper for my 2004 tacoma, based mostly off the design from overlandunderbudget.com (3x5" tube bumper). Looking for advice on how to build the hitch receiver. I don't want to incorporate the receiver "in" the bumper, rather I'd like to just weld it to the bottom of the bumper. I do pull a small trailer occasionally with firewood, generally not exceeding 2000lbs, combined trailer and wood weight. I'm thinking of welding this receiver to the bottom of the bumper, and possibly reinforcing it a bit:


I plan to fill in the holes in the plate with weld, and possibly as reinforcement weld a piece of 2x3" tubing on the back end of the plate and attached to the inside sides of the brackets that mount to the truck frame. My question is, will this be strong enough, assuming my welding is good?

 

The fact that you are asking this and assuming your welding is good demonstrates your uncertainty. That alone makes this a hard no. It is about the safety of everybody using public roads. You have the responsibility to not put others at risk.

Find a professional fabricator experienced with this application and pay the money to have it done right for your sake and ours.

 

Does your design allow use of a real class 3 hitch that bolts to the frame?

 

Well, currently no, but I've been trying to figure that out as well since I already have a hitch attached and it would be handy to leave it there. The problem is my current hitch bolts to the frame the same way my new bumper will...to the sides and bottom of the frame. Thinking of maybe just using the side plates to mount the bumper and using the hitch I already have, but concerned about bumper mounts not being strong enough, especially since I'm adding a swing out tire carier.

 

Lol, do a quick search on all the "professionally built" steel bumpers with a receiver tube. None of them will offer any sort of assurance to the hitches capacity to stay on the vehicle while towing.

 

Not enough info on what you're doing to determine if there's enough structure to support a load. Need pics/details of the structure bearing the load beyond the hitch itself

 

Never said they did. But they have a lot more experience with what works and what doesn't, and methods and materials.

 

Considering I'm one of the guys welding dump beds onto semi trucks, you should probably just stay off the road. I'd appreciate it. (You should know I'm self-taught, primarily through YouTube videos)

The level of actually shady stuff that's on your everyday commute would send some in this thread into the crazy house.


For instance. I just worked on a official, and brand new, factory built SwapLoader truck frame(allows the truck to swap between different beds for different functions). one of the factory welds was in an area next to a place I needed to wire brush to clean and repaint. The weld was between 2 pieces of 5/8" structural steel, and part of the assembly that holds the entire bed onto the truck, bearing the weight of the load.

The weld was so porous, a heavy hand with a wire brush(on a handle, NOT powered!) took half of the weld out.

If the OP puts any effort at all into welding it on, paying attention to appropriate surface prep, even 3 beers in, and with closed eyes, no one will ever know, and it won't ever be a problem until long after the unmodified section of the frame rots in half out of age.

Even that SwapLoader frame, as bad as that one weld is, is still so overbuilt, that a few bad welds still won't be a major problem.

 

Yeah I don't have any pictures yet to describe what I'm talking about. The best I can say is I'm going to weld the above hitch receiver to the bottom of the bumper I'm building that follows the design in the following video:

 

i didn't watch the whole video, but skimmed a bunch of it.

it really shouldn't be a problem if you mind what i already said-- even half a care towards surface prep, and the old addage of 'if one weld pass will hold it, 3 will hold even better'.

main considerations are to never weld to the heat treated frame directly above suspension components. most times frame extensions/mounts will be through-bolted to the frame, and then welded at very the end of the frame beyond the suspension components where the frame meets up to the new part. my shops requirement is that anything structural that gets through-bolted needs to have 4 grade 8 3/4" bolts at a minimum. in the video, it appears he's only got 3 per side, and too far apart.

also, be sure to price out buyers products in your area. many times their pre-made assemblies are offered for cheaper than the labor cost and raw material costs--of course DIY, labor cost doesn't matter so much but the time savings can mean making tons of progress in a weekend instead of dozens of weekends building the same thing yourself.

my shop uses these pre-cut pintle plate kits on a good majority of the trucks for the time/labor savings they offer. the triangular plates in the picture go on the bottom of the pintle plate/frame connection to distribute the pintle hitch load into the frame.
these tend to go on all the semi trucks
https://www.buyersproducts.com/product/fabricators-hitch-plate-170

these typically go on all the f450-750 builds
https://www.buyersproducts.com/product/hitch-plate-with-bottom-channel-3119

 

Use 10.9 or 12.9 fine thread metric hardware, preferably flanged head.

 

The pictured part is designed to be bolted in place. Does it come with bolting instructions? If its good for 5000 lbs as advertised - why not just create a way to bolt it on? The mating plate has to be attached as securely to the bumper - as the part's mounting plate is attached to the hitch box.

 

Seems like extra unnecessary work to weld a plate to bumper so I could then bolt the hitch on.

 

I'd worry more about the integrity of a 20 year old frame than a bumper.

 

Looks fine for your intended purpose if you use the parts/thicknesses (3/16" tube and 1/4" frame plates) as designed by under-budget. You might want to assume that someone in the future will hook up a heavier trailer.