Seriously sturdy hitch reciever and consequently rear bumper job

[TheBirdman]

So for a while now Ive wanted to have a good hitch receiver on my eagle. Ive done all the research and read all the threads on the original class 1 and class 3 receivers, and honestly even the class 3 one that bolts to the sheetmetal behind the bumper always seemed a little lacking to me, and the homebuilt ones I recall seeing that bolt to the frame channels seemed like entirely too much work, fishing around nuts and bolts through the channels, which in my case are full of grease and rust flakes. After much deliberation Ive decided to sharpen occams razor and go for a much simpler approach. I had recalled watching an older episode of roadkill, wherein they flat tow a prius behind a gremlin, so knowing that theyd need a pretty sturdy hitch to do that, I rewatched the episode, and saw that they removed the aluminum bumper and welded a bar directly to the bumper supports. Im not looking to do anything quite so permanent, so I set out to  build a bolt-on one. The immediate downside that Im sure youre wondering, is "what do I do with the original bumper? A straight steel bar wont look anywhere as good as a nice aluminum bumper". And youd be right, however Ive known for a long time that my rear bumper is shot. Originally, my eagle had the class 1 hitch on it, which just bolts to the bumper. Very poor design. Anyways, Im guessing someone tried to pull some kind of stationary object with the original hitch, becasue the bumper is cracked right down the middle and a little bent too. In addition to this, it turns out when you bolt aluminum directly to steel, then leave it outside for 35 years, you get a little problem called galvanic corrosion, and long story short, the aluminum turns to chalky paste and flakes apart.

So this bumper has cracks all over and the part where it mounts to the support is halfway disintegrated. This is also why the steel mounts for the bumper end caps always rust away to nothing. Anyways, to cut to the chase, Im going to cut all the structural support out of behind the bumper, and bolt the outer facade of the aluminum bumper overtop of my new steel bar bumper.

This is a mock up of course, but good for eyeballing things. Ill likely have to cut a notch out of the bumper for the hitch, but I should be able to fit it back into the profile left by the end caps and the upper trim piece. The receiver will be a little high for most trailers, at about 23", but I can get a drop hitch for it. The most important thing is that this will definitely be sturdy enough to carry my dirtbike rack, which can be hard to account for with most receivers as it has a pretty heavy tongue weight, so you need a class 3-4 receiver, even though you arent pulling much extra weight.
Anyhow, Heres my progress so far.

Ill see if I can find some weld through primer after work today so I can continue.

[vangremlin]

Good luck, sounds like a really good project.  I saw that episode of Roadkill.  Although they were short on specifics, I seem to remember them losing control of the Gremlin/Prius combo and driving off the road.  The Prius still made it to Arizona (?) where they ran over it with a tank 

[TheBirdman]

Yeah, they blew a left front tire and 180'd the whole road train into the median. It still ran and drove fine, once they waited something like 8 hours for a tow truck so they could go find a spare tire. Great episode.

[TheBirdman]

I got the bar welded together and the bumper gutted, so it almost fits over the bar now, it just sticks out a half inch or so.



I have to do something about the crack in it now as I removed all of the structure holding it rigid, then Ill think about how to mount it.