Bored Clerk's Rear Bumper Build

Looks great so far! At least I think so...I can't see much on the pics.

 

More crappy pics!


Bearings, spacers, seals. All greased up and ready to roll.


I just happen to like all of this contrast in one place.



All put together!



With tire.

Now, I don't have a photo with the jerry cans. The powdercoater forgot the top plate for the Jerry can holder in the sandblast booth so it didn't get coated. Oops. Haha. I'll get that next week.

Drove it around a bit and nothing fell off so that's nice. It's going to look really good when I get the wrap around wings done and the drawers and camper. It's a little out of place right now but I don't care...I gots dat vision, yo!

I still need to wire up the license plate light and the backup camera. I think I'm going to try mounting the backup camera on the inside edge of the Jerry can holder (toward the center of the truck). I think that might be the best place for it.

Anyway, that's the end of phase 1! Stay tuned, I'll be working on the wings soon.

 

Lord, I need to get better photos. There's so much detail that you can't see in these photos because all of the black just runs together.

 

Looks great!!!

 

After a nice break and a sweet vacation to Iceland, I'm back on it!

This is happening:



Measured twice, eyeballed a few times, worried a lot...and that's just to get tape on the truck! I'm nervous about this. Don't want to screw it up!

 

Yep. That just happened.

Not terrible. I still have some cleaning up to do. Radius corners and trim the area below the taillight so it looks good and is the same from side to side. Once everything is cleaned up the way I want it, I'll get some paint on the exposed metal, mount the fender flares and cut those.

 

Between travel and picking the low hanging fruit (finishing the much easier refrigerator mount for the truck), I haven't done anything on the bumper. Well, a little thing here or there but nothing major. I'm starting to get annoyed at myself over this. I'm 75% done! Just finish it!! Ugh. I'm a little stuck in the 'overthinking it' stage. I just need to start and it'll become, sometimes painfully, clear how to proceed. I'm mostly posting this so those of you with fabrication aspirations can see what it can actually be like on a project like this! Haha.

 

You can do it! You're almost there!

 

Looks great buddy. Haven't been on here in a while and damn I've missed a lot.

 

Thanks! Being away for a long time is the only way to see actual progress on most of my projects! Ha!

 

Where did you get the spring loaded pin and can you get some measurments of it? Last thing I need to do and cant seem to find a pin small enough.

 

I got mine from 4xinnovations. They sell the spring pin with a weldable sleeve. It's great...ready to go! I have also seen pins like this on McMaster Carr but can't be sure how easy they'd be to integrate.

 

Looking good so far. Who did your powdercoating BTW?

 

I get all my powdercoating at M&M powdercoating. They are in Vancouver and very close to both my work and home. Super convenient. Their prices seem good and they turn everything in a week to a week and a half.

 

Sweet thanks! Been looking for a powdercoater in the area that someone has used...

 

Yeah, I like these guys a lot. Totally recommend.

 

No photo update but I did, finally, spend some time on the bumper. It was all pondering time but I worked through my plan of attack and general layout for the side wings on the bumper. I doubt any real work will happen until I get back from Peru (leaving end of next week - gone for a week and a half), but you never know. It's hard for me to get all the equipment out and set up for, realistically, an evening or two of work. We do have a long weekend though...

 

Finished our last big trip for the year. Spent four days hiking the Inka Trail to Machu Picchu...crazy cool trip! Anyway, got to work on the bumper today.


Started by setting the angle for the back corners. Tacked together.





Then I'd did some measuring and trimming of the corner plate and side wings. Tacked in place.

Then I made a template for the top filler piece out of mat board.


Here's the template in place. I'll cut this from steel tomorrow.

That's it for today but I'm happy with the progress. My focus is truck projects now that traveling is done. So, I should be able to make good progress on this. Stay tuned!

 

A bit more work this morning...



I cut the top corner plates and tacked them in place. That may be all of the fabrication I can do today. I have a bunch of measuring to do so I know how much more material I need as well as what shapes I need to cut. It's coming along well, though.

 

Made some great progress after work today! I guess having months to think about how I was going to do this is actually paying off. Haha.




Got a lot of the bracing in the corners done which starts to really show the shape.

There is probably room in each rear corner for some small reverse lights...not sure if I'll take advantage of that. I'm not really a lighting guy. Might look good though.

I'm pretty happy so far. Back at it tomorrow after work!