So my buddy is a welder by trade and we've thrown around a few ideas for a new bumper for my truck. I've been doing alot of research and it looks like its going to be 1/4" plate with 1.75" .25" wall HREW tube. The pic isn't of my truck (Its actually a members here,mines in my sig) but is a basic paint idea of what I'm looking at. There will be a shelf at the top, level with the bottom of the grille and deep enough to mount my lights(basically stock bumper depth but flat plate instead of the black plastic on top of the stock bumper). then the front view will be the red plate with the black outlined paint section facing in toward the truck at a 45* angle to meet up with the frame.The black holes are for fog lights and the little things in the center of the bumper are d rings I'm gonna weld on. The idea is to make a road armor type bumper but not as heavy or bulky looking.

My question is does anybody have a picture of the stock front end without any bumpers attached? How is the stock bumper attached to the frame? Does anybody have an off road bumper like what I'm looking to build or any advice/suggestions for my design? Thanks for the help.



second version

 

i would go with the first...

 

Id go with first option but google road armor , fab four , nad theres other i cant remember right now

 

Second version looks almost like a stinger type bumper... Wouldn't look right on your truck.

 

mhockey- Ive researched all of the bumpers for my truck. The ones you mentioned are where I got a basic idea for the bumper.

everyone else- I was leaning towards the first option but keep the opinions coming

 

not sure if this would help you a lot, but my custom bumper is about a sheets of iron welded & smoothed out together, the Shop that did mine removed the stock bumper and created a new mounting brackets for this one (sorry no pic) which are attached to the frame (i believe) yet I can use my stock bumper back again, here are some closey's:

Driver Side


Passenger side


I can't believe that my whole heavy bumper is attached on only 2 bolts , so yeah there should be more...

 

thanks for the pics mana- I know you have a 07 nbs but any pics of that bumper from a front view? Im looking at mounting my bumper the same way but with more like 4-6 bolts per frame rail.

 

madmax, whered you get that pic of the truck? I wanna see his LT setup.

 

I was searching around for tube bumper and bumper ideas on here and just found his truck in a thread,sorry i cant help more

 

there you go madmax,

 

thanks mana- thats what im looking to do but i want to replace all of the plastic up top too. nice looking bumper though, nice and smooth

 

i think 1/4 steel is a little thick..i think most bumpers are 3/16

 

I got that number from all the pirate4x4 guys who are rockcrawling and hitting rocks and such. If I could get away with 3/16 and still have it be strong enough that i dont have to worry about it if i do hit something or get in a crash thatd be great cause thats less weight on the front.

 

3/16th will be strong enough for you.

Mine will be 3/16 and 1/4 around the winch for extra support!

 

The front bumper is just bolted to the frame. Theres bolts potruding from the bumper itself, then you just tighten 2 nuts on each side so 4 all together.