HD rear bumper for a Land Rover Disco.

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I've been meening to post this here for a few weeks, especially since I haven't posted any of my work here yet.Anyway, we start with a trip out to Calico to go wheeling on some old mining trails. If the Rubicon is a 10/10 in terms of difficulty, most people consider the trails in Calico about an 8.5-9/10, so 11 other Land Rover club members and I headed for Calico. It was all going well, untill right about at this point. I took a bad line and bad things happened as a result.This remdered my stock rear bumper rather "bumped" and my rear door wouldn't open, I beat it back into shape with a hammer, but it needed replacing.So after looking at some options and going to the metal store a few times, here's what I've come up with for now, keep in mind my total cost is sitting at less than $100  Luckily I found my old P&S camera so I have pictures of the whole proccess, something about welding near my $$$$$ DSLRs made me uneasy. Unfortunatly there is no macro focus on said P&S camera so I have no upclose pictures of the welds.The blank canvasLittle bit of trimmingSee next post for more Land Rover breaking/welding fun
Reply:Then the base of the bumper, a 2"x5"x68.5" peice of 1/8" wall mild steel tube. Not the perfect base, but it was simple, no need for notching and it only sticks out a hair further than the chassis horns.Brackets to hold it to the chassis are made of 1/4" plate and bolted using m14 grd. 8.8 bolts and NyLocksPlating in the ends, again 1/8" plate was used and all welds will be ground down later for looksI made a "slider" type peice under the quarter panel out of 2"x2" 1/8" wall tubing, cut the end at an angle and plated it inHere you can see where all the visible welds were ground downI shot the whole thing with Rustolium primer then black rustolium paint, wich doesn't actually stick to the primer and has peeled up un several places allready, you can also see the runners that go to the chassis in this picture, they are made of seemless 3/4" .195 wall DOM tubing. And here it is all mounted up, unfortunatly I boogered up the paint putting the spare tire on, only to find out it doesn't fit anyway. I will be making a new mount as a temp. peice untill I do a swing-away spare tire carrier at a later date, I'll also be adding a little bit of alluminum tread to make it look prettyEventually (month or two from now) I will be designing a whole new bumper that will be made out of laser cut 3/16" and all welded together, but untill my buddy has time to draw up the peices in Solidworks I'll keep running this one.All welds were done with my poor little overworked SP100 at 100amps, .025 Lincoln L-56 wire, wirefeed set to "just right" and C25 mix gas. Granted 100 amps isn't quite enough for 1/8" and 1/4" but I did plenty of beveling and on the 1/4" stuff I ran 3 passes, from what I could see before sealing the whole thing up I got decent penetration. That and I don't plan on rolling the truck again so hopefully it won't get bent.
Reply:I think that you did a great job on rebuilding a factory (decorative ) bumper. I am the king of excess and I would have at the minimum used 3/16 or maybe 1/4 steel. I have OA, Stick, MIG and TIG available in my garage and I think that you did a great replacing the factory (decorative) bumper.Mike
Reply:Looks good ...until you build the bigger and better bumper. John -  fabricator extraordinaire, car nut!-  bleeding Miller blue! http://www.weldfabzone.com
Reply:Mike, thanks, and yeah it's not quite bombproof, but compared to the factory bumper it's a huge improvement. The factory one is 14ga stamped steel, and even then it took me a while to bend it. This one gives me much better clearence and is boxed in so it should hold up better. Eventually it will be replaced with 3/16", as 1/4" is just too heavy for the truck and total overkill. The 1/8" bumper is high-lift jackable, the main reason I will be upgrading to 3/16" is so that I can weld recovery clevises and a hitch right into the bumper and get rid of factory hitch to gain departure angle. The Rover is my daily driver/trailrig/desert pre-runner/chasetruck, so it has to stay reasonably light, and not get too mangled, so I stay away from the really hardcore rock-crawling where you need 1/4" steel.John, thanks for the compliment. I got a look at the first peice of my new bumper in Solidworks today, it's going to be pretty over-the-top strong and not add too much weight.
Reply:Weight shmeight....I say use some 1/2"!!  J/K max.....bumper looks good. Seems to be an awfully nice ride to be throwin' around on the trails. Glad to see it!  - Paulhttp://all-a-cart.comWelding Cart Kits and accessories
Reply:I was going to say the same - nice ride to be bouncing off rocks. They make old Jeeps for that !  John -  fabricator extraordinaire, car nut!-  bleeding Miller blue! http://www.weldfabzone.com
Reply:Paul, how about just machining the whole thing from solid steel, turn it into a tail-dragger.Jeeps cost too much, most people don't know this, but Land Rovers are nearly worthless as soon as they roll off the lot. Plus on a cold morning on the trail I have seat heaters, I can impress clients and women with my wood dash and leather seats, and I have ice-cold AC for the desert. Land Rovers are an adiction though, you can't own just one, I'm headed for England this summer to find the perfect Deisle 110' panel wagon to import. After that I think Paul may get the dubious honor of building a cage and linking the suspension.
Reply:Originally Posted by maxyedorPaul, how about just machining the whole thing from solid steel, turn it into a tail-dragger. After that I think Paul may get the dubious honor of building a cage and linking the suspension.
Reply:Nope, left hand drive, but it only takes a weekend to swap it over to righthand drive, Rovers are weird like that. You also never know what you mite find under any given interior panel, the Brits are a crazy bunch, but they build a nice truck.
Reply:ZTFABno problem on the wrong side drive just flip the cage over and put in in upside down, it will fit like a glove. summer is here, plant a tree for mother earth. if you dont have time or space, sponcer some one else to plant one for you.feel free to shoot me a PM or e-mail me at [email][email protected] i got lots of time.
Reply:I like it for a Rover!Seriously, alot of the off road bumpers out there are so over built its silly.  Not only do they weigh alot, but they can be a hazard too!  Effecting steering, suspension, and can cause more harm than good sometimes.Good job!ThermalArc 185MillerMatic 180 w/ AutosetVictor Cutskill Oxy/AcetyleneThermal Dynamics Cutmaster 38and spite!
Reply:Nice work! Right hand drive? I don't know how to build a cage from the wrong side of the car!!
Reply:looks good, we have a RangeRover that we're build a full cage for this summer.-Clarke 130EN-Miller MaxStar 150STL-Miller Elite 29' Roadster
Reply:Originally Posted by ThunderRobolooks good, we have a RangeRover that we're build a full cage for this summer.