Front Hitch Receiver for Recovery?

Got ya, I took off the air dam so that wouldn't be a worry. Most likely going to go with the hidden receiver option tho

 

I was looking for a secure way to grab the front of my 2014 and came up with this - after I saw a fellow wrap a chain (!) around one. This removes the little tin boxes from the ends of the crossmember and replaces them with solid metal anchored back inside.


These are solid 1 inch T-6 6061 forged aluminum bars - one on each side. With 1/2 inch Grade 8 bolts tapped up into them. Drilled on the extension with 15/16 Ø holes for 3/4 shackles in the vertical direction. The bars are the same strength as mild steel - so about 35,000 pounds "pull-out" force each in this width. Bars are the same yielding strength as mild steel - just weigh 30% less. It isn't just hanging on the bolts, they were milled to just fit in the space. The vertical hinge is way stronger for side pulling than the horizontal.
Designed to use two shackles and a tree-saver strap to load both ends. The longer the saver strap - the better. I've used this outfit to pull some blown down trees that needed low range - but nothing kinetic - yet. Has to be at least as strong as the Curt bar for a pulling rig - weighs less than 15 pounds.

 

Pretty rad- You created this yourself??

 

Yes - I'm a mechanical engineer (retired). Work part time for a machine shop now. I bought the aluminum bar off E-bay and cut it with a metal cutting bandsaw blade in my home shop. Dressed the rough edges with a mill file - until it exactly fit. Made the big hole for the shackle pin with a bi-metal hole saw. Used aluminum to make it light, its plenty strong in the spec I found - same as mild steel. 7075 aircraft aluminum would even be stronger. I've considered making a set out of 1.25 thick plate to make it fill the box even tighter.

I had one of my engineers at a past job calculate how much load you can put on the four sided frame attachment - has a 25 mm hole in all four sides (that we think was deliberate). Should yield - depending on how you try to crush it - at about 10,000 pounds of force - this is one side alone.

I had a child engineer try to tell me that the "elastic modulus" of the aluminum would cause a problem - but he must have been asleep in "strength of materials" class. The yield strength is - the yield strength and any stress below that cannot cause permanent deformation. The aluminum simply flexes more under any given load, as long as it doesn't yield - no harm no foul.

 

Even an external plate for the bottom, or bracket, to reach and use both bolts might help with a little extra reinforcement.

 

The aluminum bar sticks back into the crossmember.

 

I'm still sketched out with the amount of leverage you have pulling from the crossmember. Obviously your attachment point can prevent the open box from crushing and twisting, but whereas a hitch mount is made from .188/.250 wall tubing, the frame is just 10ga.

I appreciate your points about it being for slow pulls and only when using both sides with a sling.

Before I found my kalilfab bumper (tube prerunner style) I was interesting in a hitchmount receiver, but same issue, no real way to have a recovery point in-line with the frame rails. I breifly considered adding some .188" plate gussets to a hitch receiver, and them adding some d-rings to the underside of the cross-tube, but about that time I found a bumper.

 

These are solid 1 inch T-6 6061 forged aluminum bars - one on each side. With 1/2 inch Grade 8 bolts tapped up into them. Drilled on the extension with 15/16 Ø holes for 3/4 shackles in the vertical direction. The bars are the same strength as mild steel - so about 35,000 pounds "pull-out" force each in this width. Bars are the same yielding strength as mild steel - just weigh 30% less. It isn't just hanging on the bolts, they were milled to just fit in the space. The vertical hinge is way stronger for side pulling than the horizontal.
Designed to use two shackles and a tree-saver strap to load both ends. The longer the saver strap - the better. I've used this outfit to pull some blown down trees that needed low range - but nothing kinetic - yet. Has to be at least as strong as the Curt bar for a pulling rig - weighs less than 15 pounds.[/QUOTE]

Now if I could just figure a way to get a 2 inch receiver hitch into the design..... ;-)

 

Square tubing between the two bars across the front. Two plates each side with holes to match the shackle holes, sandwich and bolt solid. Weld these plates to the tubing?
Might as well just use that factory built part if you have to have a box hitch. I saw one sketched for this model of truck that simply removed the black plastic Toyota cover and bolted onto the aluminum box beam.

 

>saw one sketched for this model of truck that simply removed the black plastic Toyota cover and bolted onto the aluminum box beam.

Ooh man, that's sketchy.

 

All of the stuff (even the bumpers) end up relying on the 6 skinny little studs on the frame nose. There is one I checked out that has some additional inch bolts through the boxes holding the lower x-member - and another relies on some clip sort of things that pinch around the frame nose plates. Just look at that KLUGE of plate ARB offers as a hard point and you know this isn't going to be easily solved.

The (2x) 10K pounds yield strength of the two welded boxes holding on the lower x-member (that Brian calculated from reverse engineering) is what I put my trust in.

 

There's a few ways to plate the end of the frame. And a few external brackets of different designs meant to tie a bumper in to the frame behind the rippled crush sections at the end of the frame.

I have *yet* to to do the fab work, but i'm going to do a weld on plate over the end cap of the framerails and then tie that back in to the frame behind those OEM end plates.

But I'm also not wheeling super hard all the time. The amount I've done so far I havent even had to break out more than a come along or get a quick pull with a strap.

 

Yep reinforcement is 100% needed, this was from 1 hard winchpull.

 

I mounted the hitch I made to those factory plates and put one deer on the rack and they bent. 100% not a good mounting point without some sort of brace.












The hitch was tight at the top before the deer got put in.






You can see how far it's pulled away from the frame here.

 

Backwoods and C4 make reinforcing brackets for front bumpers. I don't know if they fit 2nd gen though. But they should help prevent the kinda damage you have.

https://backwoodsadventuremods.com/products/2016-tacoma-front-bumper-frame-support-brackets

 

No thanks, Ive already built one of these for another member. Didnt do it to my truck yet for scientific purposes.

Going to modify the skid for approach angle too

 

I think the mounting face doesn't have enough vertical height. This photo shows what you have to work with.

When you engineer stuff like this - you assume the lowest bolt is the pivot and the distance to each upper bolt is your leverage. So three inches - versus the CG of the deer and platform hanging out there a few feet.The multiplier is (was) too much to handle with the tiny frame weld, the bolts held. There are more holes to choose from to make the base plate taller - it will take some invention to grip them. From the bottom to the top most hole - it would be four times the vertical distance.

 

So 300+ for the hidden mount plus 175 for reinforcement? Didn't think I'd ever get talked OUT of buying a product on TW

 

Interesting piece there. Is that intended to be welded on for a crossmember delete?

[Apologies up front for straying from the thread topic]

I installed this kalil fab bumper because I wanted a prerunner style tube bumper. The things very solid. Once I have the truck paid off, I was planning to chop and replace the front crossmember, then cut the tubing off below the plate for the winch mount, either leaving them long enough to run coped tubing back to the LCA crossmember, just tucked up a bit higher/steeper approach angle than is currently allowed with clearance for the oem crossmember, or just tie the new tubing directly to the bottom of the winch plate. The back of the winch plate is flat across the full width, so I have been back and forth either adding some .188" plate welded to the inside flat surfaces of the frame rails behind this with a crossmember welded between out of 1.5/1.75" .120 dom, or simply finding a relatively suitable piece of angle and making it also reinforce the end plates for the frame rails. Do you have any more pics of your crossmember?

 

Yep a crossmember delete, all 1/4" plate and 1/2" GR8 bolts