Super High Clearance Bumper Build

Hello TW, I just wanted to share my bumper build with the community. Hopefully to give you guys and gals some ideas for your rigs and future projects.

Starting off, I the one and only goal was to gain as much clearance as possible while not sacrificing strength and style. Looking back, I would have hid some of my welds but am overall happy with the product.

Be sure to follow me on Instagram at Big_wood73 for more content and other builds

 

As shown in the Image above I started by chopping off the front of the frame and cutting back about 2 inches.


I then capped and reinforced the inside of the frame (not seen) by welding in some plate on the inside



I also filled all holes with some 1/8” plate



The frame mounts were built with 1/4” plate, and only grade 8 hardware was used. The mount fully surrounds and squeezes the frame, making it the most viable mounting option.



Next, I used my Protools manual tubing bender to bend 1 3/4 .120 wall DOM over their 180 degree die. This here is going to be the main tube.

 

Before mocking it onto the truck, I decided to go ahead and welt the fairlead plate and winch plate to the main tube

 

Once the winch and fairlead plates were mounted I half a**ed mocked the main tube up on the truck simply using some painters tape. This way I could get an idea of how it looks as well as chop any of the front clip before cutting secondary tubes.




Here it is held under its own weight. Drilled through the mound and frame using 5 bolts on either side and 1/2 grade 8 bolts and tension nuts. The secondary tubes were made of 1 3/4 .120 wall DOM as well




Came back after work and added a verticals support in the center using 1 3/4 .095 wall DOM. Wasn’t worried about making it perfectly centered as it is just a support and will be hidden later



I was also able to add some main tube support off the the secondaries that will house pods later on. Slightly different then the original plan, but I liked the look much better this way

 

Here the full picture of why I did what I did with the bumper is coming together. By chopping the frame back so much it didn’t allow the winch to sit low without coming in contact with the AC condenser and sacrificing approach angle, so I merely moved the winch up as high as possible. By doing that though, it does cause some other issues. With the winch so far away from the bumper brackets, the levering force from the winch onto the frame mounts is exponentially greater. Typically manufacturers mount the winch in line or as close to in line with the frame as possible to prevent that, but it requires large sacrifices in clearance and approach angle.




Used some one of a kind CAD (cardboard aided design) to plate the upper side of the bumper.






1/8” plate was used here. Due to 2 broken plasma cutters, all plate had to be cut by hand with an angle grinder and a lot of patience

 

Finally the bumper was plated with 1/8” plate and I drilled 6 holes out with a hole saw, leaving space in the middle to run a license plate in the future if I do choose

 

Now that the bumper was done, it was time to get the skid plate built. This was a PITA tbh because I lack a working plasma cutter and metal brake. All cuts and bends were done using a cut off wheel and angle grinder

Keeping it super strong and to keep it up as high and tight as possible, I put a large bend in the center and then gusseted the bends. Everything was made using 3/16 plate except the “legs”. For the front “legs” I used .095 wall DOM and the rear I used 1” square tubing due to how small the mounting surface on the subframe is.




The skid comes extremely close to the condenser and power steering lines, leaving only 1/8” gap/clearance




I made some triangular tabs out of 1/4” plate and welded that to the lower horizontal tube on the bumper in order to mount the front of the skid.


All together it is one seriously strong and protective set up. If you have any questions feel free to ask. I’ll picture dump soon

 

Nice work OP

 

Nicely done...Are you plan on having a cutout for access to the oil drain plug?

 

Yes I will once I pull it back part for paint

 

uggg, the sideways insta story screen caps are like the worst way to post pics on a forum....

sweet bumper tho.

 

lol agreed. Unfortunately didn’t save the photos before posting. Since IG doesn’t allow them to be saved after added to highlights this was all I could do ‍♂️

 

Awesome bumper build, totally awesome