Poll- Tube vs Plate front bumper

What style front bumpers does everyone prefer on their first gens and why?

 

Tubes with nice bends complement the body lines of the 1st gen , but plate allows for awesome designs tubing can't match so you smash the designs together for a hybrid

 

I like the prerunner/trophy truck tube bumpers. The plate bumpers I think are real bulky n heavy IMO

 

Depends on what you get. An arb plate bumper is lighter than most prerunner bumpers. The biggest consideration imo is if you want a winch or not. Both are metal stuck to the front of your truck other than that.

 

That's just how I feel about plate bumpers. More of an overland, crawler style.
I saw this tube bumper with a wench mount on it by Mullen fab awhile back that was pretty sick.

 

Looks like Mullen isn't in business anymore. Too bad because that's what I'm looking for. There's always the trial gear rock defense for a cheap option. I'll try to find a used one, but also I'm waiting until Pelfreybilt comes out with their first gen hybrid. Is this similar to what you're taking about @BikerinBlak909?

 

Tube bumpers expose everything on your front end and imo looks terrible.

 

Tube bumpers have built in skids for the radiator. Good ones are made to protect your important parts up front with the wings. Unless you drive at sticks all day I'm not sure a plate bumper offers much more practical protection. Plate bumpers look out of place on desert trucks just as you might think tube or hybrid bumpers may look unpleasing on a truck you think looks good. To each his own.

 

Let's hear more about this wench mount...

 

Plate a lot of tube bumper designs leave the radiator exposed just waiting for a stick to go through it

 

Plate looks cleaner. Tube looks meaner.

If you go with tube, just make sure you paint all of the body colored sheet metal behind the bumper black so it's not seen behind the bumper.

 

Plate bumber for sure. Check out the flatland 4X4 plate "kit". I am in the finishing stages of mounting mine on my 96... much more work that I initally anticipated but it gets noticed. I didnt install it for the attention, not interested in that, I needed a secure place to mount a winch and $1k for a bumper is a little steep for me.

 

I was looking at addicted off road for tube and 4xinnovations for the plate. Both have decent black Friday specials going on and I can save on shipping if I go with the addicted one, but really love the look of the 4xinnovations.

 

Tube all the way. First gen's look great with tube. I'm a little biased as I am running addicted's tube setup, but I can assure you the radiator isn't exposed when you have the addicted done properly with a skid and winch. And what is exposed is high up and through a narrow window.

 

Yeah that pic of @jubei and your truck together is the only reason I'm even considering the addicted tube! I love their plate bumper, just not the exposed winch on top.

 

I’m with Mike on this.

1st Gens look great with any bumper, but my preference will always be a tube bumper or a hybrid.

 

Seems like an acceptable time to whore a pic

 

This one?

IMG_0028 by Michael Halat, on Flickr

I agree with you on their plate.

Brute force fab did make this hybrid once that I liked:



Not sure if they still do though.

 

Yep that's one! It looks awesome, I wish I could find a pic with it on a 98-00 front end.

 

I think it will look similar to a 3rd gen 4runner:



Another good truck to look at for your front end is @BYJOSHCOOK who's got the same front end and rocks the brute force hybrid front:



Always liked the look of his front end.