[ISUzj]

I am thinking about building a rear bumper for my ZJ anyone done it? I am having a hard time figuring the best way to do it.

[ISUzj]

well, since there was little/ no reply, i just went ahead and went to work and designed a bumper. I have already cut the majority of the metal pieces out (free steel!!) and just got the welder on Saturday. there are some minor details missing but those also will come along as I build.

The back plates will be 1/4 inch, but the sidewalls are 3/16 and i plan on filling the backside spaces with foam to give it a little more backing.

What you guys think?


I will take any thoughts or advice. As I go I will be posting this up.

[ZJ_Richie]

I like the concept. It looks like it should go ok. Best of luck and keep the pics coming.

[ISUzj]

Well I got a ton further than I planned over thanksgiving break. Unfortunately, I did not have the camera readily available. So I had to make due when I got a hold of my camera and some fresh batteries. I first began by removing all of the old bumper parts as well as the old hitch. Then I cut some parts to fit in the uni body-rails and proceeded to weld them in place (after cutting appropriate holes for bolts)


The bolt holes were made by shoving the "hitch" in and marking the holes off and drilling them in and welding the nuts to the inside of the rail.


Then I fabbed up a Hitch using standard 2-1/2 x 2-1/2 x 1/4 tubing. with 2 x 2 x 1/4 tubing to go in the rails. Each one was cut to roughly 16 inches and then chopped to be able to weld some grade~8 1/2" nuts in. I also took the time to weld in my spots for my recovery points. which I had decided to place a touch higher than my hitch height.



I also ended up lowering the hitch a little vs the height of the frame rails. But I used some Ideas from my original mopar hitch. And was able to weld some gussets on the ends and cap it as well as add some additional pull strength.

[ISUzj]

After I got the Hitch and Recovery points made I could then get to work on the bumper itself. I actually fabbed the entire thing up out of cardboard and duct tape. then took measurements and drew them up on Solidworks and made the above rendition.

I went and got a piece of 3/16 and 1/4 diamond plate and began to fab up the back bumper and the back plate. Once I had all of those tacked in place I began to tack together the pieces that made up the sides. ( I had cut those out of an old cabinet at work that was no longer needed)

I ended up with this and a couple rough seams but mostly assembled like a car panel(lots of tacking in a circle) and then ground off the welds to this, Brown primer for the 3 hr ride back to college......






Sorry I do not have any process pics...this is where I did not have the camera; but I can't give away all of my secrets!!

As you can see my tire carrier is still in process...... but you can actually see parts of it on the floor on the right(its 4 garage door bearings and 1"shaft thanks dad!)

I then bought some bondo to really smooth out one or two dips because of my welding laziness.....


then sanded it.


After that I took the tire carrier off and the Hitch and Hurculined them all instead of painting. I had a leftover quart from my truck 3 yrs ago and thought it would be useful.

[ZJ_Richie]

Looks good. Lets see a pic of it on now(herculined), and with a spare on that bad boy.

[JEEP97TJ]

Wow, that looks pretty awesome. Great fab work.

[jcal73]

Looks Great! You have WAY more patience than me!
Jeff

[ISUzj]

So Finally got the rest of it finished up so I could focus on my finals during finals week and not be thinking about my bumper. I began by taking all of the parts off my old mopar tire carrier that were useful off. and built a basic frame for the tire carrier.



Here is a picture of how this one is swinging, I know it is a little diff but it also was a lot cheaper(free) there are two 1" bearings in that peice of square tubing and that ought to be enough to support the swinging tire, if not, I wil end up doing something more expensive for a solution.



This is the finished product with all of the mopar goodies on it as well, this way I do not have to come up with a new latch system for the spare carrier but can use what is now on the jeep (if it ain't broke don't fix it).



here is one pic of it done, I will get a cleaner one when I can locate a tire for my newly acquired soft 8 but it works pretty good, the only thing is that I can't jump up and down on the carrier like some others here can. I guess I can try to make a better plan to incorporate in the future!! This is after it has been Hurculined and stuff as well.


I need to do some small mods yet on the total bumper(mud flaps and a couple of here and there's) but for the most part I have a totally new and custom rear bumper!

[johnsoninc86]

that looks really good. The only thing I would do it move the hitch in a little more for a better departure angle, but other than that, it looks strong as heck! I like the Eat Bacon license plate too...

[Dlongj]

Im very excited to see how it turned out! Mine is coming along pretty good. Im at a halt until it warms up alittle more so I can get Wrenching. Now Time for the front

[ZJ_Richie]

Looks great

[ISUzj]

As requested, a little late:

[ZJ_Richie]

Looks great all together. So how much did it cost you to build including all supplies?

[ISUzj]

Boy I bet it was under 100 bucks for the supplies, including the 50 dollar welder!!

Free sheet steel: except for the square and Diamond~~ 50 bucks for that
Free bearings:
Paid for grinding wheels: $15.00
D rings: $8.00 a peice
can of rust prevenitive primer

And Hurculine that was 3 years old