Adding Armour to Our Rovers
While out on our trip in Harlan, one of the CROC members (Ric) mentioned that he really needed to start protecting his rover. Since it is his daily driver, he did not want to damage it if he could help. With that comment, we decided to have him come down one weekend and we would get him setup.
CROC member Bill is quite lucky in that he has access to a shop that has all the equipment to shape metal. We set a date of August 30th for Ric to come down and stay for the weekend while we worked on creating him some bumpers. Bill's son Wil also needed to create some bumpers so he would be joining us. I needed to work on my truck but more importantly, add dual brakes to my trailer. Wil, Bill's son, also needed to new bumpers.
On Saturday morning, we met at the shop around 9am and started to work. After getting all the vehicles in place, the work began. We started with Ric's rear bumper. The first step is to remove the old bumper completely. Since his bumper has lights, he had to unhook them and then unbolt the bumper. There was a catch. He still had that rear step in place. In most normal circumstance, the smart thing would be to remove the gas tank so you can get the bolt out. We are not normal. We cut it our with a plasma cutter. We had plenty of water on hand to keep everything cool and of course a fire extinguisher. In the end, no surprises and we got the step removed without taking the time to remove the gas tank.
With that done, we needed to prep the truck for the rear bumper. All that needs to be done is welding on additional steel to the already existing rear brackets. We cut the steel, welded it on, ground it smooth, and drilled a hole for the bolt. Next we proceeded to work on the bumper itself. It is really quite simple. Rectangle steel tubing, diamond plate top, and 3/8" steel wrap around corners. We cut out the pieces, welded them together (checking for fit along the way), and ground them smooth. Now this sounds like it took an hour but in reality, there is a lot of welding and grinding (and more grinding) so that you cannot tell that the bumper was ever welded. in fact, it looks like it was stamped.
While that was going on, Scot removed the trailer wheels and realized that there was not a steel plate on the axle for mounting the new brakes to the rear axle. We custom made a square steel plate, drilled the holes for the bolts, and cut out the center that fits over the axle. Actually, we liked it so much, we did it twice. The center hole needed to fit perfectly so a lot of time was spent deburring the hole until it fit smoothly over the axle. Once both were fitted, there were welded, the new backing plates put on, bearings cleaned and greased, and all put back in place. The only thing left was to splice the new electric brakes into the existing brake wire and we were done. We tested it out and they worked perfectly.
Once that was done, Scot could help out with the bumpers. There was a lot of cutting, welding, and grinding that needed to be completed. After the first day, the rear bumper for Ric's truck was 60% complete, the front bumper was 30% complete, and Wil's front bumper 60% complete (and the trailer was 100% complete). Not a bad job.
On day 2, we continued working on the bumpers. The front bumpers are more complex since there are a lot more pieces and angles to be concerned about. We also have to bend some metal for the corners. We just kept busy and near the end of the day, we were very close. The rear bumper was on and the front bumper only needed the corner put on.
With the rear bumper on, we marked for the recessed lights and cut them out with a plasma cutter. Since the lights we were going to use have rubber grommets (they are trailer lights), the holes do not need to be perfect but large enough for the lights to fit inside the grommet. We got those wired up and they worked great. We put on the top plate and screwed it down so it would not interfere with the door and the bumper was painted. Not Ric did not like the angle on the end so he decided to cut them down. He also caught his truck on fire at the gas tank refill hose. We had to use a fire extinguisher to get it out. No harm done. We kept working.
The front bumper was finally assembled and all that needed to be done was the angle brackets cut and put in place. Bill did one and Scot tried the other. Wrong cut so we had to do that one over. This time Carol took it over and got it cut and welded in place. Great job. We painted the bumper and we were done.
We cleaned up and got back on the road by 10pm. Scot has a dual brake trailer, Wil has a new front bumper, and Ric has a new front and rear bumper. Not a bad weekend worth of work.