Adding Tow Hitch to Aftermarket bumper

Hi y'all, looking for some input from anyone with fabrication experience.

I currently have an aluminum rear bumper from Coastal Offroad and love it. Unfortunately, we would like to get into a small skiff in the near future so I've actually removed the bumper and gone back to the factory setup to have a safe tow rating.

It's been difficult to sell the bumper so I'm debating on switching gears and trying to see if it's safe to potentially add an aftermarket steel hitch to my bumper. I'm not concerned on the clearance aspect of having a 2in receiver below the bumper, but I would like it to sit relatively flush with the coastal off-road bumper.

Since both the bumper and tow hitch mount to the same points on the frame, and they utilize an L shaped bracket, how crazy is it to think a little modification to an aftermarket market hitch would allow it to bolt around the bumpers mounting brackets and into the same location on the frame? Basically, letting the tow hitch sandwich the aluminum bumper mounts to the frame points?

Id imagine the tow hitch would need to be widened just to tad to fit around the bumpers mount, and then the bar itself raised to sit flush with the coastal bumper.

Any issues with this idea?

 

Fundamentally you're not wrong about how you could make that work. The question comes down to liability, its one thing for your hitch to fail and damage your own stuff, but if it breaks and you damage someone elses vehicles/injure soneone, you bring a lot of liability on yourself.

You would need to keep the hitch centered, so you need to widen both sides evenly. That's twice as much welding, and potentially twice as much liability.

Most shops would turn down your request. A good welder/fabricator could do it, but you're inviting problems.

It may be easier to find a cross tube with the hitch section pre-welded, e.g. a diy bumper kit, and weld your own mounting plates on. But you need a good 220v mig welder, or look at your options with a stick or tig setup if you're limited to 120v to have full root penetration if you're using mig (140A 120v home gamer welder isn't going to cut it).

Not saying it can't be done, its just a question of how you go about it.

 

Appreciate the input! I'm by no means a welder so this would go to the welder who Tig'd the aluminum bumper to begin with. He seemed hesitant just from my initial ask, so I may just forgo it.

I definitely don't want an associated risk especially with towing something heavy.

 

See if he's willing, thats all you can do.

 

What about leaving factory hitch installed and then modifying the bumper to fit around it?

How does the Coastal bumper mount?

 

I'd rather leave the stock hitch untouched so I can always revert back to stock.

The bumper mounts to the frame ends just like the stock hitch. Modifying the hitch to bolt around the aluminum bumper then into the frame ends seems like the path of less resistance.

 

If it was me and I wanted a tow rated hitch I would lop off the bumper mounts and make new mounts that are either welded or bolt next to what didn't get cut off. That way you are making the bumper mounts wider instead of making the trailer hitch wider.

I don't know how much changed from 2nd to 3rd gen but my 3rd gen after market bumper just uses 3 bolts on each side of the frame that the trailer hitch uses so you shouldn't need bolts going on the under side.

Here is the bracket for how my first after market bumper mounted.

 

Interesting, I guess they did change a bit because the 2nd gens have two holes that bolt through the bottom on each side also.

My thinking for widening the hitch to go around the bumper mounts is so the bumper can remain non modified.. and less work for the welder. You wouldn't need to cut the brackets off the bumper to allow the steel hitch to fit. He could also work with the bumper and hitch off the truck to get them to work, instead of needing the truck to mock it up.

The welder is a marine welder who specializes in T Tops for boats. He does great work, but I'm not necessarily his ideal client

 

Bolts ont he side of the bumper mounts:



And then bolts that go up through the bottom of the bumper mount:

 

I figured the bumper is already the modified part so why mess with the hitch. I highly doubt Coastal ran the bumper design through cad to see the stress points and how much strength is needed, so as long as it looks solid it is solid lol.
Buying some 1/4" aluminum to make new bumper mounts would be cheaper than buying a new hitch to modify.

Like you said lay them both together to see what interferes with each other and figure out the easiest way to modify the bumper.