Will C Posted March 11, 2011 Share Posted March 11, 2011 I have had it in mind since fitting the front winch bumper to get something for the rear of the rangie. After months of trolling the web I finally gave up on buying anything out there and set about thinking through fabricating my own. My metal work skills are limited enough but how hard could it be? After measuring and looking a lot I came up with dimentions and got a piece of steel folded to the profile I wanted in local steel works. And there the project sat for over a year due to health and family committments. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Will C Posted March 11, 2011 Author Share Posted March 11, 2011 Finally I could look at the rusting steel no more and decided I would have it ready for stonleigh. I jumped on an offer from Paul to use some of the workshop facilities in Rovercraft to get the basic shape made bracketed and hung. So I randomly cut the 1.8m lenght in to a leght to fit the car and loaded it up one saturday morning in late July. This random cut turned out to be both a blessing and a curse. Having scribed and cut the ends to fit around the quarter panels I was working on the main bracket, which I intended to slot in under the drop plate bolts, when Paul came up with a cunning plan and an appropriate piece of angle iron. basically we slot cut the angle to go under the hitch bolts and rest on top of the drop plate on one face whislt the other would be drilled to mate with the original bumper bolt holes making a simple and very strong one piece mount. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Will C Posted March 11, 2011 Author Share Posted March 11, 2011 after getting the bits home I set about joining the together. The easiest solution was to mark and drill the bumper right on the angle and fill the hole with weld from above, this saved me having to try upside down welding . I used an old fire blanket to protect the car from heat and splatter and then the whole assembly could be lifted away for proper welding of the angle. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Will C Posted March 11, 2011 Author Share Posted March 11, 2011 Next came the end caps - I made a plywood template and cut them from the remaining channel using slim Jim type discs. The arbitrary cut mentioned earlier meant the drivers side was about 15mm too short on the top (curse) when it came to attaching the end caps (I know..measure twice, cut once!). However I managed to tack the end cap in place before letting in a piece to fill the void. The end result was slightly better than the other side re body Angle (blessing!) I also made a coupe of brackets to extend down from the original bumper mounts to the bottom edge of the bumper and welded them securely in place. Having trial fitted the bumper at this stage I decided the line of the end cap would look way better if sculpted to follow the seam of the body end cap. There followed a lot of grinding In the second pic you can just see the piece let in and the difference made by curving the endcap Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Will C Posted March 11, 2011 Author Share Posted March 11, 2011 Finally a coupe of coats of primer and and four coats of Gloss Black Aerosol and it was ready to mount. I used isopon 182 zinc primer, brushed on as there was still some surface rust residue despite cleaning with wire brushes and flapwheels. Not thinning the primer proved to be a mistake as I had to spend a lot of time rubbing it down to remove the brush marks. I treated the car to all new mounting bolts with locking nuts as I knew I'd be doing some heavy towing on the way to stonleigh. And finally I finished it off with some reflectors and grip tape to make a safe step for access to the roof rack. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SteveRK Posted March 11, 2011 Share Posted March 11, 2011 Nice Job there. Looks very 'factory standard' as well Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Range Rover Blues Posted March 12, 2011 Share Posted March 12, 2011 Looking good. I have a Southdown/FirstF|our one on mine but it doesn't extend round like yours. Wish it did sometimes. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ThreeSheds Posted March 12, 2011 Share Posted March 12, 2011 very nice Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
geoffbeaumont Posted March 12, 2011 Share Posted March 12, 2011 That's a very tidy looking bit of work! Like that a lot. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cynic-al Posted March 13, 2011 Share Posted March 13, 2011 Looks good, i've just finished one too. I wanted one that was as high as possible to give the back as much clearance as possible. I didn't bother going round the corners as they are kind of tatty already, not sure if it was a good call or not yet. I took the tow bar off as I don't use it and mounted it there and on the standard points. For a recovery point i wanted a ball in the middle for speed and a shackle either side if things got worse. The plan was to cut out a notch for the ball so it didn't stick out the back but the bumper is only 60mm deep so wasn't deep enough for this. The shackle either side a bit of 25x50 which is welded through to the mount points. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Will C Posted March 13, 2011 Author Share Posted March 13, 2011 Looks good, i've just finished one too. I wanted one that was as high as possible to give the back as much clearance as possible. I didn't bother going round the corners as they are kind of tatty already, not sure if it was a good call or not yet. I took the tow bar off as I don't use it and mounted it there and on the standard points. For a recovery point i wanted a ball in the middle for speed and a shackle either side if things got worse. The plan was to cut out a notch for the ball so it didn't stick out the back but the bumper is only 60mm deep so wasn't deep enough for this. The shackle either side a bit of 25x50 which is welded through to the mount points. Looks good Cynic-al but having had mine in some heavy going I would say definitely put some sort of end cap/wrap around on it. It will be worthwile. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Will C Posted March 13, 2011 Author Share Posted March 13, 2011 THANKS FOR THE POSITIVE FEEDBACK GUYS I'm already planning Mkii - with longer endcaps with sliders built on and hight lift adaptors. W. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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