Front winch bumper

[eaglefreek]

Ever since I built the rear bumper with tire carrier http://forums.amceaglesden.com/index.php?topic=35492.0, I've wanted to build a front bumper. Well, I finally made the time to do it. It took a few days but got it done. I didn't take many pics of the build like I did with the rear bumper so I can't go in as much detail.
I started with a piece of 1/4" steel that I had made for the winch. I believe it was 8"x 33 1/2" and a 4"x 33 1/2" piece
welded to make an L. I then took 2 24" pieces of 3/8x5" flat stock that I made the frame mounts out of. I removed the bumper brackets and installed the 3/8" steel to the unibody using one of the bumper bracket bolt holes, a steering box bolt on one side and  idler arm bolt on the other side. I also added 2 more 1/2" bolts that I drilled through the frame and sleeved. I bought premade recovery points that are made out of 3/4" stock. The rest is 1/8" steel. The winch is a 9,000 lb   Harbor Freight Road Shock that I got in a trade. I am going to upgrade to a Warn some day in the future.
I had to notch a little bit of the front valance for the mounts.


Here's my 79 year old uncle stick welding the 1/4" winch plate to the 3/8" mounts. All I have is a 120v welder and wanted to make sure the critical stuff was done right.











Here is the only place I ran into trouble. The steel moved during welding. I guess I got too much heat in that area. I will have to figure out how to fix it.

[MudPuppy]

That looks sharp!  Wouldn't mind either of your bumpers on my Eagles.
Here's an egg.

[Pat]

Looks good!! Like the way you cut & welded it to make end caps. EGGselent job!

[eaglefreek]

Thanks for the compliments. It was a lot of work.

  What's the angle on the underside like? (<---- read: pic? lol)

You mean like for approach angle? The new bumper sits a little lower than the old bumper. If I were to make a dedicated trail rig I wold put the winch in front of the grill and make the the bumper angle up at the sides and then cut the fenders similar to this:

[vangremlin]

Looks very nice!!!!

[WoodenBirdOfPrey]

Looks awesome.  You're giving me more motivation to learn to weld.  Somebody gave me a MIG welder a couple years ago, but I never got it set up.  Maybe it's time.  I just need to wire up the 25 amp outlet and fix the ground lug and it should be ready to go.

[mach1mustang351]

That bumper looks sweet!! Nice Job

[Eagleearl]

Great job! Looking good.

[Sunny]

Looks good! Just make sure it's attached incredibly well, or it might just pull only your bumper if you are really stuck.. haha

[txjeeptx]

Very nice, fits the lines of the car well. Bet the front suspension rides different now, probably nice n smooth. Bet there are Jeep owners out there who see you drive by and go into a jealous fit.

[rollguy]

That looks TO THE MAX!!!!   It would be cool if you made patterns and had all the dimensions available so someone else can make one.   I know you are not about to mass produce them.  Things like this are just tooo cool to be one of a kind.

[83Eagle!]

That is awesome.  Great work.  Looks like it could have been ordered as an accessory.

[iAMCheap]

I like the Emblem delete hood.
It looks smoother than normal

[HappyPappy]

  Looks almost like an "A-TEAM" car  Darn good job, next you'll be building a roll cage for the out side!!   LOL.

  Sounds like you could make a few more and retire from being a carpenter only those "red ants" are a little worse then splinters.  LOL

[GRONK]

How far off is a Cherokee bumper from the Eagle?  I like what you've done, looking to do something similar but with a whole lot less effort on my part

[eaglefreek]

Looks good! Just make sure it's attached incredibly well, or it might just pull only your bumper if you are really stuck.. haha

It's attached with 1/2" grade 8 bolts. I think you could lift it up by a crane from the front bumper and not have any issues. 

Very nice, fits the lines of the car well. Bet the front suspension rides different now, probably nice n smooth. Bet there are Jeep owners out there who see you drive by and go into a jealous fit.

  I actually can "feel" the weight of the bumper and winch. It will take some getting use to.

if i had TIME, i could steal your look and all and build my own. i dont have time. they say time = money. how much would you charge to build another?? that might fit right on an sx4. that would look so flippin SWEET on my 2 1/2" lifted sx4. i want it bad. then i could just build from there with a "cow catcher" as they are called out here. (grill gaurd) i stinkin LOVE it. i want one SO bad now. cept i have to get my race car ('79 spirit drag racer) tuned, and my casper car ('62 rambler classic custom 2 door) show car going before i have time to mess with something like this. o ya, shipping. your probably gazillion miles away. im so envious right now. i want THAT bumper!!!!

I just don't have the time to do it. As long as it took me to make it I'd have to charge more than what most have paid for their Eagles.

  Looks almost like an "A-TEAM" car  Darn good job, next you'll be building a roll cage for the out side!!   LOL.

  Sounds like you could make a few more and retire from being a carpenter only those "red ants" are a little worse then splinters.  LOL

I'd have to make more than a few to retire. Plus fortunately I'm not a carpenter anymore. I stumbled into a new career field. I am now a geophysical and hydrophysical logging technician. My body is grateful for the job change.]

How far off is a Cherokee bumper from the Eagle? 

Not a clue.

[shaggimo]

How far off is a Cherokee bumper from the Eagle?  I like what you've done, looking to do something similar but with a whole lot less effort on my part

You'd have to lengthen the mounts considerably, the chero bumper has stubby mounts. Width I'm unsure of, however I do have my homemade cherokee bumper off at the moment, and I could get you some measurements if you like, then you could compare to your eagle dimensions.

Question for Eaglefreek, did you box in the backside too or leave it open? I thought about building something for the Eagle, that gives a few ideas, looks good!

[eaglefreek]

How far off is a Cherokee bumper from the Eagle?  I like what you've done, looking to do something similar but with a whole lot less effort on my part

You'd have to lengthen the mounts considerably, the chero bumper has stubby mounts. Width I'm unsure of, however I do have my homemade cherokee bumper off at the moment, and I could get you some measurements if you like, then you could compare to your eagle dimensions.

Question for Eaglefreek, did you box in the backside too or leave it open? I thought about building something for the Eagle, that gives a few ideas, looks good!

I left it open but I did add some bracing that isn't in the pics.

[shaggimo]

Ah, that's good, probably helps to keep the weight down a bit I'd imagine.

[Bird-o-Prey]

DISCO!!!!!!!!  Have an egg on me!!

Cheers

[eaglefreek]

Today I took some time to fix the right side of the bumper. IT WAS BUGGING ME!

Before:


I cut it right at the corner and then raised it up with my hydraulic jack:


I cut a piece of steel to fit in the gap:


After welding and grinding:


A little dab of body filler and some sanding and painting and it is fixed:

[shaggimo]

It's the little things  ........... That would've bugged me too, looks great  .

[j2sax]

Any chance we can get a profile shot where we can see both front and rear together.... good work! 

Jesse

[eaglefreek]

Any chance we can get a profile shot where we can see both front and rear together.... good work! 

Jesse

It's hard to get a good view of both the bumpers in the same shot. I went to my Uncle's place and took a pic from his upper bridge with the Eagle on his lower bridge.

[j2sax]

Excellent! That's the most proportionally perfect set of bumpers I have seen to date! 

[mick]

That looks fantastic!

[eaglefreek]

Thanks again for the compliments. I'll let someone who knows what they are doing put them into production. It's actually not that hard to do, just time consuming. I decided I wanted to fab some parts for my Eagle and since I don't have a bunch of money to pay someone to do it, I bought a welder on Ebay last year and figured it out on my own. I still let someone who knows how to weld with better equipment, take care of the critical stuff. I also want to add, it takes alot of time, materials and tools to do fab work. I have no argument with what a fab shop would charge to make such an item. It's just that I have more time than money.

[Bird-o-Prey]

Did you take/have detailed measurements you could throw onto a sketch of the bumpers?  That would go a long way to helping someone else fab something up.  Personally, I love both of them (front & back) and would love to have them on my eagle!!

Cheers

[Prafeston]

Great work eaglefreek!

[HappyPappy]

Don't we all, still looks like a pro-job. Now you drive nails with a keyboard!! LOL

[eaglefreek]

Did you take/have detailed measurements you could throw onto a sketch of the bumpers?  That would go a long way to helping someone else fab something up.  Personally, I love both of them (front & back) and would love to have them on my eagle!!

Cheers

Sorry. it went together piece by piece. I didn't have the full vision when I started. I figured out the optimum location for the winch and built it up from there.

[Prafeston]

You could make rough estimates from your finished product no?

[Zoro]

That looks factory!

[CheroCamarEagle]

Any chance we can get a profile shot where we can see both front and rear together.... good work! 

Jesse

It's hard to get a good view of both the bumpers in the same shot. I went to my Uncle's place and took a pic from his upper bridge with the Eagle on his lower bridge.

I got a stock wagon with leather seats, wanna trade?   

[SvenTomas]

Good Day EagleFreak . . .

I was excited to find your posts on the bumper build.  Looks like you've had tons of requests for drawings.  I just ventured out of the nest and bought my first Eagle . . . been planning/thinking for years. 

I'd like to offer a favor to the group:  I teach a CAD design class here in Washington State (middle- and high- schoolers).  Right now, we are donig 3d design in Sketchup, and some of the kids have been designing/building cab-guards for their pickups.  One of the first items of business I will address on my Eagle ('84 Brown Wagon) is to build front/rear bumpers.  I'd like to model them with my students, in 3d, to scale.  And then, we could provide full 3d model as well as dimensioned plans to the group, maybe even with some options.

It would be super helpful if you could summarize at least your materials, and what you liked/didn't like, etc.

Thanks
Tom

[eaglefreek]

Most of my materials are listed in the first post. As far as the 1/8" steel, if I remember correctly, that  was a piece that was 2'x3' and I had some left over. I can't say that there is anything that I would do different. I like the way it came out. Being a novice welder I don't know how to account for the metal shrinking and moving as I weld, so there were some adjustments to make as I went. I would love to see a cad drawing of something similar. Also, not everyone would want a winch, but may want a steel front bumper, which would be easier to build. Here's a one done on a Subaru. http://www.expeditionportal.com/forum/threads/76287-Subaru-Forester-Bumper-Build-for-E-J

[SvenTomas]

Hey thanks . . .

I liked the Forrester bumper.  I think that's kind of the route I'll go for my Eagle.  I will keep you posted.  Probably won't get built until some time this summer, but hopefully designed in Sketchup before school is out June 7.

A couple other questions about your rig:

I'm planning to get some jeep wheels this weekend.  Currently, I'm looking at a set of 25x7 (5 x 4.5) that came off of a 98 Cherokee. 

What size are your wheels and tires.  It looks perfect, I don't want too redneck or too tall for the tranny.

Also, what is your spring setup.  I like the level your rig is sitting at.  I need to at least replace my springs, and I'd like to get about the same look/height you have.

Thanks again in advance for your help.

Tom in WA

[vangremlin]

That's a nice write up on the Subaru bumper.  Thanks for the link!

[doc65]

Those wheels are Grizzlies, off a Jeep Wrangler, they are a 15"x7" wheel with a 4.5" backspace, most factory Cherokee/Grand Cherokee/Wrangler 15x7's will work for you, probably best to stay away from the 15x8's though as it doesn't sound like you want to do as much to the suspension as it would take to make them work.  I'm running 15x7 ecco's from a cherokee on my SX4



My wagon is currently on a set of oem Eagle Rally Aluminum wheels, at least until I get around to selling them as I have another style jeep wheels I like better.

[eaglefreek]

I've got new Espo front coil springs with 1/2" spacers and added 3 leaves each side from a front Grand Wagoneer leaf packs. You can either pruchase new custom leaf springs or add a couple leafs from about any 2.5" leaf spring pack like  a Cherokee or Chevy S10. As Doc explained those are Grizzlies with 215/75/15's. I had to do a cutting up front to keep them from rubbing. i've since switched the wheels to 10 spoke Cherokee wheels with 225/75/15's.

[SvenTomas]

Thanks for the info.  That sounds like just the ticket for me.  I'm going to order up some ESPos for the front, and check local junk yard options for the rear pack.  I'm surprised to hear that you had to do some cutting to fit up 215/75s.  I've currently got 205/70s that have some life left, so will probably run them for a while.  

Thanks for the help.

 . . . here's my new ride: (just because I know everyone loves to see photos)

[doc65]

Looks just like Bess, except she has power windows, and your interior is nicer