why NOT an ARB bumper?

Measuring caliper is buried moving rn

does anyone happen to know diameter/OD of the tubing?
Like front main tube, highest up, of the "bull bar" portion


Looking at mounting my 60" hi-lift on the tubing, vertically above, using genuine Hi-Lift mounts (cheaper than billet aluminum FourTreks)
and need to determine size as they come in 1-2" and 2-3"

Anyone else done this?
Hopefully coat of oil and boot will protect it there.
Reasoning behind using legit clamping system is to have solid mounting. Yes people have used hardware on the radio antenna mount holes, but they're designed/advertised as "antenna mounts" not hi lift holder, and can bend.

 

I get ~1.895" to 1.900" all along the bar. Diameter doesn't change anywhere across the top or on the down-bend portions.

 

awesome thank you that's exactly where I was gonna put it
two clamps off the center tube

seems they changed the OD based on different models over time

couple deals going on now Amazon with fulfillment center customer returns open box
hopefully it is simply that; open box new item not used for a discount
versus open box with nothing in it, or a single sock
(seen this)

 

What make/model was the other vehicle? How fast was the combined closing speed? (Your forward speed + theirs, assuming it was more or less a direct frontal collision?)

 

FWIW this is the "ARB Deluxe Bar", model 3423140, on a 2014 taco.

 

Went with ARB for the crash testing mostly over anything else. Used to live in Texas where wild hogs were the cause of multiple bad accidents and two fatalities I witnessed personally. Now I’m in Colorado so I have larger game watch out for when I’m on the road at 4AM. Knowing the bumper was crashed tested during design, and that the airbags will go off was peace of mind for me.

As for other items people mentioned:

- Black powder coat has never faded or chipped. I do keep it ceramic coated FWIW but it looks brand new.
- wiring was all done by me and I threw out all the taps and what not ARB provided. Everything was soldered and wrapped to prevent corrosion or moisture from collecting.
- I installed the ARB LED indicator’s option at time of install. Much better than the halogen housings it came with.
- used the aforementioned brackets to run better fogs than the halogen ones it came with.
- use the factory recovery point up front all the time. No need for additional recovery points.

Without a doubt, this is a very heavy bumper, but so is the rest of my rig, and didn’t want to sacrifice safety for a little bit of weight savings.

 

I did not buy the ARB for my 2013 Tacoma because it sticks out unnecessarily far, to me is quite ugly, and is excessively heavy. I have a CBI Moab 2.0 bumper and am happy with it. The ARB design seems like an afterthought for this model.

 

Or you could just get the 05-11 ARB bumper and mount it on a 2.5 which is what I did.

 

i love my ARB bumper soild built like a tank. only a couple of complaints that i have is the damn cage nuts. they suck! can easily be replaced with a rivnut though. the Foglight buckets on the bumper is a stupid design, and the "not serviceable" fog lights are dumb, but open them up and they can be replaced.

though i do have one spot on the bottom mounting brackets. that some of the powder coating it chipping off, scrubbed off all the "rust" and bad paint. have coated it in some paint and its holding up fine.

will also say mine is the older design and a steel cable bumper that im running an offset fairlead on that i ordered from ARB

 

Re: the fog light openings, at least on my ARB Deluxe Bar model # 3423140 -- An Australian company called STEDI® makes a good set of white LED fogs that are a direct fit for the ARB-provided fog/turn brackets that ship with the ARB bumper. (ARB's "deluxe halogens" that fit this bar are, by all accounts, notoriously dim and worthless.)

I've been running these since I first installed the ARB bumper ~1 year ago and I agree with the 5-star reviews on STEDI's website. They have excellent throw, full and proper SAE beam cut-off (no excess glare,) good color temperature, good close-in fill & sideways/outwards fill also. Only downside I can think of is that they're probably not hot enough to melt snow.

https://www.stedi.com.au/arb-deluxe-bullbar-led-fog-light-with-drl-upgrade-kit.html

STEDI's install instructions show a light-meter output in excess of 400% over ARB's "deluxe halogen" offering:

https://support.stedi.com.au/hc/en-...D-Fog-Light-Installation-Wiring-Instructions-

 

The Coastal Offroad bumper is a DIY weld kit. Most reputable plate bumpers you get will be $1k+, especially with shipping.

 

I really wanted to get a Coastal Offroad DIY weld-it-yourself kit but on close examination of the plate thicknesses I decided it wasn't beefy enough. Since I don't have my own plasma cutter to easily fab up thickening plates, I will probably eventually go with a ready-to-install 4xInnovations rear bumper.

IMO 4xInnovations build quality is excellent, possibly second only to BAMF (Bay Area Metal Fabrication) (by a little bit) -- but at approximately half the cost of comparable BAMF bumpers.

 

Paranoid fabrication makes a mount for mounting fogs in the ARB
https://www.paranoidfabrications.co...oma/products/arb-fog-light-mounting-bracket-1

 

Yeah, this would be the way to go if you want industrial-strength fog lights & color options, etc. SLEE Offroad makes a complete all-metal full insert replacement which looks better & is no doubt a lot stiffer than ARB's molded plastic insert, but the metal inserts alone (before adding any lighting) costs $235!

At the time I first was installing the bumper I hadn't done my homework on which LED fog lights were legit and could be adapted to fit in the bumper, so I just went with the inexpensive drop-in STEDI's. They go for $199 AUD plus shipping, which when converted to $US Dollars turns out to be around $160-165 all in. Hard to beat the value & drop-in convenience of the STEDI's at $80 per side.

 

i went with Paranoid Fab brackets and a set of Diode Dynamics ss3 lights

 

I have Slee inserts in my ARB bumper. While they're built well, the powder coating is terrible. Mine started to chip and rust just over a year after installation.

I wonder if one of Diode Dynamic's Elite fog light variants could be made to fit in the stock ARB foglight "pocket."

 

I wouldn't shy away from coastal offroad due to limited plate thickness. The high clearance plate bumper is 3/16 and the recovery points are 9/16 and are lined right up with the frame mounting plates. My understanding is that the ARB does not have recovery points and you'd need to get that add-on that bolts to the frame and hangs down - https://arbusa.com/toyota-tacoma-2012-2015/bumpers-protection-equipment/arb-recovery-point/.

I have 4xinnovations weld on sliders and their skids, bamf rear shock towers, an arb twin compressor and the coastal offroad plate bumper ... and would recommend all of them again.

 

where’d you mount your compressor?

re: coastal did you DIY weld yours up at home with an affordable flux core or something?

 

Compressor is in the bed cubby - been there for a few years with no issues. I have a MIG welder in the garage. The bumper was one of my first real welding projects after tons of scrap practice. It has more than paid for itself between work on this truck along with various other projects around the house along with the general satisfaction of simply doing it yourself. My welds seem to hold but damn it's an art. Here is the post in my build thread showing the bumper progression.

 

Do you remember how thick the winch plate was? I'd want to see a 1/4" winch plate.