colbystephens' build and wheelin' thread! Post 289: my NEW truck body!!!

[colbystephens]

ok, so muddytazz (jeff) and i started building my rear hitch bumper today! thanks jeff!!!

so the goals of my bumper are to be compact, allow small towing/mouting a winch on a stinger thru hitch mount, incorporate reverse lights and be a base for adding a couple pieces of tube at a later date to span the rest of the width of my truck as well as wrapping around for corner armor. this is what we've got so far:

we started by cutting down some pieces of 1/4" flat stock mild steel. this is jeff's hand getting cut off... he really puts himself into his work! kidding, btw.

i had to grind off the stubs from the PO's hitch... this brought the suck!

then we had to drill some holes for mounting it to the frame, which really sucked because my large drill bit was very dull. this piece took me like 20 minutes! the second one didn't take as long because jeff's dad had compassion on me and threw it in his drill press (i was using a hand drill). second one took about 5 minutes total.

we had to mock it up a bit for welding purposes:

here's where we stand now: the basic structure of the box is welded together, lights and reciever are simply mocked up, not permanently attatched.

the following is what we're thinking for the face plate:

i'll be adding some gussets for strength as well! jeff is a welder by trade, so he's schooling me on welding. he is doing all the structurally important and visable welds, i'm learning on the not-so-visible welds. i'll post up pics of my progress later tonite. this evening i'll probably do some painting and more cutting.

 

[colbystephens]

More pics!

just going to pic-whore it up a bit.

so here's a pic of jeff's sweet welds:

then here's my first weld (aside from 15 min. with a MIG welder, this is my first real bead)

I call this style "ugly"

I call the second bead i've ever laid "slightly less ugly"

I call the third bead i've ever laid "even less ugly"

I call the fourth bead i've ever laid "pretty damn good for the fourth bead i've ever laid!"

still not amazing, but i'm pretty proud of it!

ok, more important pics now. i started working on my front bumper tonite too. i decided to remove my front valence and take a 4" piece of channel, and bend it to fit in the same place as the valence. this keeps my ground clearance high while protecting the front end from serious bashing. for a bracket, i will do something which will wrap around the frame horns at the bottom with a reciever tube in it so that i can mount a winch on a stinger (thus i can use the winch at the back too!)

valence removed:

testing how well the channel will fill the space provided by removing the front valence:

channel bent and testing fit:

i'm pretty stoked about it. i might bend up some tube and have the tube slope from the edges to stick out about 4 or 5 inches at the middle so that if i bump something, it will hit that before the actual hood/grille.

thoughts? ideas?

 

[Chevy305]

Looks Nice! Keep up the pic whoring!

 

[original balzer]

Nice work I like the app./dep. angles. I need to take pics of the rear bumper i built for my 77 its 8" channel tucked right up under the tailgate with some shackle mounts (1"x2"x13" solid bar stock) through the bumper and welded about 11.5" along the side mounts on the frame. Not to the frame though, just the mount then theres 6 3/4" grade 8 bolts per side holding it on. Then the hitch tube is welded to the bottom and a crossmember 10" back. The forward crossmember and the side mounts sandwitch the frame with the 3 forwardmost bolts per side. Basicaly its super overkill and to pull that bumper off its going to have to tear off the last 10" of frame. The ends though, are still rough cut from the tourch, because I am haveing a real hard time cutting the bottom of the rear 1/4 pannel on a bed thats basicaly perfect. (whew long sentance) Oh yea i forgot to mention that 4 of the bolts go through the shackle mount bar stock as well.

Balzer

 

[colbystephens]

Nice work I like the app./dep. angles. I need to take pics of the rear bumper i built for my 77 its 8" channel tucked right up under the tailgate with some shackle mounts (1"x2"x13" solid bar stock) through the bumper and welded about 11.5" along the side mounts on the frame. Not to the frame though, just the mount then theres 6 3/4" grade 8 bolts per side holding it on. Then the hitch tube is welded to the bottom and a crossmember 10" back. The forward crossmember and the side mounts sandwitch the frame with the 3 forwardmost bolts per side. Basicaly its super overkill and to pull that bumper off its going to have to tear off the last 10" of frame. The ends though, are still rough cut from the tourch, because I am haveing a real hard time cutting the bottom of the rear 1/4 pannel on a bed thats basicaly perfect. (whew long sentance) Oh yea i forgot to mention that 4 of the bolts go through the shackle mount bar stock as well.

Balzer

cool! good idea on running the bolt thru the shackle mount. i'll have to consider that!

 

[colbystephens]

ok, so updating!

i went over to a buddy's house and used his welder and drill press and fabbed up a front bumper. i'd say i'm about 95% done with the preliminary build of it. I still want to add some shackle mounts to it in addition to the hooks that i have. here's what i've got so far:

i removed the front valence and used some 4" channel and then made some mounting brackets. this is the first fabrication i've done.... ever. i think it turned out pretty sweet.

the plan is to add a small stinger to it using tube and to also use some tube to wrap around the corners of the body. i'll be mounting some lights on it as well.

more pics:

i've also removed my crappy carpet install... ive decided that after college when the money is there, i'm going to have to do a rust-free body swap. in the mean time, i'm cleaning up as much of the rust as possible and painting it black. lots and lots of work with the grinder. i'm a bit farther than this pic shows now:

 

[y5mgisi]

Sweet! BTW we are going to matt's thursday now instead of wednesday if you wanna go.

 

[colbystephens]

ok, so i worked with one of my truck photos... i know i posted it in the lounge already, but i also want it in my build thread!

 

[stan1688]

That pic looks sweet. I might have missed it, but are you just using rattle can to paint it? Build looks awesome btw.

 

[colbystephens]

yeah, it's just rattle can green. the whole truck is painted now - no more birdy on the hood.

 

[1978Blazerk5]

how do you make the bumper curve? relife cuts and fill with a weld bead correct?

 

[colbystephens]

i notched the web of the channel and bent it with a big hammer, then filled with weld.

 

[1978Blazerk5]

ok thanks.

something i would concider doing,is getting a mirror like you have on the driver's side.

 

[colbystephens]

that's the stock mirror from a 74 pick-up. i swapped that door on after i bashed in my stocker. i'll be putting the matching door on the passenger side soon. nice thing about it is that it comes off very easy (1 screw) so it's easy to protect while wheeling. that's one of the big reasons i want to swap the other side out. aside from that, it's just nicer looking, IMO.

 

[1978Blazerk5]

yah i like those style mirrors.

i remember now seeing what you did to you door. you really messed it up good

 

[jekbrown]

the rest of the front fender fangs have gotta go colby! lookin' good tho!

j

 

[colbystephens]

the rest of the front fender fangs have gotta go colby! lookin' good tho!

j

how do you mean?

 

[BillyL]

I think he means to cut off the rest of the fender by the turn signal.

 

[colbystephens]

i see. they don't look like fangs any more tho... w/ the bumper installed!

 

[BillyL]

I think it looks good the way it is i wish i had the skill to make a bumper like that.