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Mounting Tube-Bumper to the body, not the frame - Waddya think?

T

Twiz

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I hope Mr. Fox doesn't mind useing a couple of pics of the UAV. I like that bumper and am building one very similar to it. (as a matter of fact, I'm wating for it to cool down right now, so I can run another bead in a minute)

My question is, with a wrap-around bumper like the one on the UAV does the bumper crush/contact the body when the frame is twizted up.
http://coloradok5.com/temp/uavbumper2.jpg
http://coloradok5.com/temp/uavbumper1.jpg

I was thinking about mounting the bumper to the body. Useing the tail-gate hinge as one contact point (very-strong section) and wrapping the bumper around the fender and bolting it to the inner wheel well area. The rear legs of the cage are pretty close to that area and will probably be tied in as-well.
Probably will build a bumper/skid-plate around the gas tank and tie-that into the frame, but it would be independent of the wrap-around section.

Do you guys think it'll be strong enough?
Do you think it's even worth doing?
Should I just forget it and bolt it to the frame?
When the wrap-around bumper is bolted to the frame does it contact the body and if so, how bad?



Thanks Steve.
Thanks in advance Dudes. /forums/images/icons/grin.gif
 
There is quite a bit of twist between the body and frame. I didnt realize how much until I seen the pics I have up. If you look at the pics from the front and back you can see how much difference there is between the body and bumpers.

NOW....if you brace the side wings to the floor braces under the bed I think your idea will work OK. Just dont try to pull from it. Make sure you have a good pull point to the frame.

If you hit something it will mess up the body though, so that is something to consider.
 
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My question is, with a wrap-around bumper like the one on the UAV does the bumper crush/contact the body when the frame is twizted up.

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In my case, Yes. I bent the tubing a little too close to the body (@3/4") If I had it to do over again, maybe I would have made some more room in there. But then again, more metal hanging out to get snagged on rocks.... Trade-offs, trade-offs.......

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twizted up

[/ QUOTE ] LOL, was that on purpose/forums/images/icons/grin.gif
 
OK, after going out and looking at PI in the dark, at almost 1 AM, w/ a flashlite, (I hate you Eric! /forums/images/icons/wink.gif ) if you want to mount to the body, I think you should shoot under the bed area and connect the 2 wings together, and tie into the floor to give it some beef.

If you go to the frame, just leave some room to the body. Make the wings angle outward as they go up, like this /. That way you keep tight to centerline at the bottom but will flare up over the body. ALSO, make it flare some from front to back, slightly, and roll in at the front, behind the tires towards centerline so that if you do need to use it to slide around something, it wont be likely to snag. MAN this is hard to describe what I am thinking! In other words make it so that you will come off the tires to the wings, but the ends of the wings are inside of tires outter edge.

Does any of what I have said make sense?! /forums/images/icons/tongue.gif
 
FWP
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, was that on purpose

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Yerp! /forums/images/icons/grin.gif

3/4" and it still hitts, WOW!
I've been useing a engine hoist to "flex-out" the suspension and test mods.
It's really apparent how much movement there is when you can see it happening right infont of you.

It's not really a bad thing, because as the LF gets stuffed into the fender, the LR is forced down
- Kinda "forced articulation".
 
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OK, after going out and looking at PI in the dark, at almost 1 AM, w/ a flashlite, (I hate you Eric!)

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LOL, bahh- no you don't /forums/images/icons/grin.gif . Thats funny, I think we've all done that a time or two, Last night I ran out and pulled the tail-light houseing out to see if you can get to the cab-corners. Couple of months ago, I had Baddog run out to check a date-code stamped on his EGR.
It's like a CK5 bi-atholon. /forums/images/icons/smile.gif
*BTW, thats why I linked the pics of Steve's ride, you can pretty much see everything with those*

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Does any of what I have said make sense?!

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Nope. /forums/images/icons/wink.gif J/K



I think I know what your getting at, taper it out towerds the rear, right? I know where your going with it, the only thing is that the body tapers slightly in at the tail-lights, not out. I think if I can "cut-the-turn" tight enough, around the fenders and to the inner wheel-wells, I don't think I'll get snagged.

Good idea about useing the cross-bar from wing-to-wing. That would be perfect, I could tie the cage into it also.
I'm gonna have to look at that closer.

Do you think it would be strong enough to take a beating tho'?
 
LOL, yeah, I remember that. And it was COLD that night too! /forums/images/icons/laugh.gif Well, it was cold for Phoenix anyway... /forums/images/icons/crazy.gif

As for the bumper, if you tie it into the body solidly, and then to the rear of the cage even, it would be fine for minor stuff. I think I would want a rear cross member/bumper for the "oh $h1t!" scenario. Maybe something like mine up underneath. That would give you protection for the tank and a place to tie in the skid too. That way you would have a nice looking outer bumper for minor brush and minor rock rash duty, and a serious, less attractive, all business bumper underneath.

As for keeping it close and not hitting the body, I've got my front hoop and halo within about 1/2" of the body. But, short of serious impact, I don't think it will be a problem. On my setup, the cage is "tied to the frame" (sorta) but floats with the body. I guess you could say that the cage is attached to the frame via the factory body mount/isolators. Then the body is mounted to the cage. That way, I let the frame flex (although much less than before) and the body doesn't pick up every little slam and scrape of the frame/suspension (due to the factory rubber isolators). If the factory mounts fail in a hard multi-roll, the “sub frame” that the body and cage is mounted to crosses the frame so it can’t channel down over the frame. Only thing I may change is to reinforce the factory frame mounts a bit. Just something to think about...
 
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Last night I ran out and pulled the tail-light houseing out to see if you can get to the cab-corners.

[/ QUOTE ] And I love ya for it Eric!!!! /forums/images/icons/grin.gif /forums/images/icons/grin.gif /forums/images/icons/grin.gif
 
Where the bumper brace on the side goes back to the mount the body is notched in a half moon to allow for flex but it does make contact and noise when flexed, just need to cut a little more body at that point.
 
I have a front winch bumper and when i get some frame flex it will rub up gainst the body you can see where it has dug into the paint in 2 spots.
 
Russ
Your on the money, your description is exactly what I had inmind. Do you have any pics of the gas-tank shield/skid-plate?

I think I'm just going to go for it. As it sits right now, I have it spot-welded to the body, so I could test-fit it and ball-park the brackets - Just being spot-welded inplace it seems to be fairly stong. With some real brackets bolted in place I think (hope?) it'll work.
 
No prob. Pam.

I can totaly picture all of us going through the forums and sprinting out to our rides to take measurements and whater-ever else, and comeing back in to make replys - kinda funny.

CK5 bi-athalon! /forums/images/icons/grin.gif
 
LOL! Yep, it's what we do. Be funny filmed and shown sped up... a CK5 montage /forums/images/icons/grin.gif /forums/images/icons/grin.gif /forums/images/icons/grin.gif
 
Sorry, mine's not done yet (except the bumper/cross member) so no pics yet. Go for it, good luck...
 
I have cracked a hard top when I dropped off a ledge and landed on the very coner of the bumper. Frame flexed and the body was still coming down. The bumper hit the body and pushed it up. Flexed the rear of the truck and cracked the top at the bottom rear of the side window. There was about 1.5 inches of clearence between the bumper and to body when the truck sits on level ground.
While I am all for only mounting rocker knockers off the body I don't feel that mounting a bumper off the body only is a particularly good idea. The rocker knocker is taking a bottom load pushing up and some low speed sideways motion. It's also very close to the cab suports. The bumpers on the other hand have to handle some idiot driving a 4-5k vehicle into it at speed. the body will crumple like a beer can.
What I would do is one of two things. One would be to tie to the body via a full roll cage to the frame. The other would be to make the bumper support a second set of cab mounts on the corners and put some bushings at that point so you have some give between the body and the frame but if you load the bumper it transfers the load to the body. I would still incorperate a full cage into the mix to keep from flexing the body to the point of distortion.
 
Well, I've allready cracked the top just screwing around in the garage, allmost to the point I thought the side-glass was going to pop-outa the thing. Kinda spooky looking. But that was without the cage installed, so with the cage it'll stiffen up the body a bit.

The bumpers pretty high, tring to gain some departure angle.
If someone was to rear-end the Jimmy, they would probably take-out the tank, springs and axle before they would hit the body. So, I think some kind of skid-plate/bumper would help there but it would only be frame-width.
Maybe build some kind of lowered "semi-truck trailor" bumper that is removable just incase of a rear-end colision.
 
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