1988 K5 the "Big Blue" compromise

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And then notched and passed a piece of 5/16 steel through the face...

I'm not finding a picture of the back side of the plate before it was welded, but it had a tang that passed through those holes I torched into the winch plate and bumper mount. it was then welded to the INSIDE of everything, Rosette welded through BOTH of the side plates, and fully butt welded to the face of the winch mounting plate.

-edit - found a picture of the tang passing through and welded to the inside:

 

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so my shackle mounts ended up being Two 5/16 plates with a 3/8 chunk in the middle. I made the outside plate, welded the 3/8 center to it, and drilled those for the shackle pin.

 

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And then it also was passed through the face of the bumper... and grooved and welded all the pieces together on the outside

 

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I then used those predrilled holes for the shackle pins as a guide, and drilled through the inner plate that was already welded into the bumper.

oh, and look at that! with a spacer, and a few more holes -that outer shackle plate goes all the way down the side of the winch mount and gets captured by a few of the mounting bolts!

 

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time to weld the shackle mount to the inside and the outside of the bumper face and lock this all together!

 

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Now I just have to repeat the process on the driver's side

 

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You Asked for it! Happy now????

 

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got the stiffener thing welded in across the front. the upright roller pin will now be a bolt and pass through it.

 

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somehow decided the whole thing would be better and stiffer, and a lot more simple to assemble if the top of the fairlead area was boxed, and the nut for the thru-bolt was welded in and captured below.... then i could box the bottom in, and keep the angled "sliding area" on the bottom of the bumper continuous from end to end. So I welded tubes to the winch plate, and will install the lower winch bolts with a deep socket. I could then box the center front with a big strip of 5/16 plate

 

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front boxed... needed some clearance revisions so that the cable wont rub on the steel/ on the bumper itself... finally getting the lower face tacked up, and the shackles are lookin pretty sexy here.

 

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And then on to the corners! I had been ignoring them, and was really liking how everything else was coming together...

 

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the original top of the bumper had a radius that swept around the corners of the fenders. Something looked "off", and it had been bothering me.

 

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And then it happened. BEER happened.


aaaaaaaaaaand standing there with my buddy jeff, throwing some ideas around, it just popped into my head and i could just see how it should be. I went over to the piece of 3/8 plate i had been carving things from, and set up the plasma torch...

 

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BEEF.

 

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ohhhhhhh yeah.

 

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over more beer and discussion about what would happen if another vehicle should come into contact with this thing... Those outer corners have now landed the bumper an unofficial nick name of "the can opener"

 

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Then came the heaviness. it was time to finally pull this thing off.

It needed finish welding all over the place, and i did some test fitting of winch parts... I added gussets in the corners where the 3/16 transitioned into the ridiculous 3/8 plate ends, and welded in nuts. the final product has tubes welded in that come back to a different place on the frame -that way, if I need to airlift the whole truck by only one of the front shackles, it wont rip off the first 8 inches on the ends of the frame rails

I also made plans for a future skid plate to protect the winch spool and free spool lever, and you can see the recessed tabs i added for that.

 

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the outside got quite a bit of grinder time with the flap wheel and flap disc

 

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I got on a scale while holding it... and then stepped off, set it down on the bench carefully, and jumped back on the scale without it for a reference/ control number. Math time -got my subtractioning skills going!

Anyone care to wager a guess on how fat the fat lady actually is??