Ricer Rivets

Got pretty rowdy up at the family acreage. Went off the two-track through some year/two year old clearings full of saplings and brush, and ended up blasting off a piece of bumper trim. Clean shear on every single tab.

Managed to save the attachment clips (they were miraculously still inside the tabs, inside the bumper assembly) and did a quick field repair with zip ties and a matching drill bit. I was short one big zip tie (note the extra holes) but no big deal. I'll get some more later.

Honestly, I think I'm just gonna leave it that way until I get the scratch together to order a new (metal) bumper.

 

I'll never understand why Toyota (or anyone else) puts plastic bumpers on their trucks that are supposed to have all this off-road petagree.

It's a bumper. USE IT! lol

But yeah, if you make a habit of smacking into your plastic bumper, no point in actually fixing it every time.

 

I mean, I get the whole "as slow as possible, as fast as necessary, do no damage to the vehicle" philosophy, and in reality putting a hardcore frodin' bumper on every factory truck would probably ruin a lot of the engineering compromises that go into making a truck that everyone knows is more than likely to spend its entire life on pavement, but can still do dirt stuff.

I don't necessarily have a problem with the design limitations of the factory bumper. I'm actually kind of impressed that there are breakaway sections on the bumper in the areas most likely to get damaged during marginal approaches, as happened with mine.

That being said, yeah, for the kind of hazards I expect to be dealing with, I really would like a nice hybrid plate/tube front, but getting the coin together to have it made exactly like I want is a longer term goal.