Rear bumper tuck

[96k1500]

I had interest on people wanting me to do a write up on this so here it is. Instead of getting a rollpan for my truck this time I wanted a little bit stronger of a solution so I tucked the rear bumper. To start the process I pulled all of the molding off of the bumper then I used masking tape to make the line where I needed to cut, started at the top of the bumper on the inside of the bed rail and ran it down to the bottom then I cut the ends of the bumper off

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Then I took the bumper off and cut the top of the bumper off

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Then I held it up where it needed to go to figure out what needed to be cut out on the bottom of the bed for clearance and removed the spare tire cable and figured out what else needed trimmed on the bumper and trimmed accordingly

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Then after stretching the mount to fit around the frame I held it in place while my dad stuck the bolts in it then I tightened them down

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Then I welded the ends to the bed and welded every hole in the bumper closed

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Then I ground down all the welds and went over the bumper with the grinder so paint would stick

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Then I went over it with body filler and sanded it back out smooth and primered it

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Then I put the license plate lights and plate back on and tucked the wires back up

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And that's as far as I've gotten until after I tuck the front bumper, build a cowl hood and paint it

 

[99'Subourbon]

Looks great - good job. I always forget how pretty it is over in Surprise. The only place out in the valley that still has farm land (and Gilbert).

 

[96k1500]

I'm in IL now, just have to transfer plates over still

 

[someotherguy]

Looks good but I personally would have left a gap and not attached it to the bedsides, same reason I choose bolt-on roll pans instead of weld-on. If the bumper gets damaged near the end, it's gonna take the bed corner and possibly side with it.

Chopping and recessing the bumper is actually a fairly old trick commonly done on old-school repo style wreckers, the kind where a slide-in unit goes in a regular pickup bed. A lot of times guys will just ditch the bumper altogether, but others will chop it and recess it as you have. It's nice to have something back there for protection, but it has to be out of the way for when the tailgate drops.

It's kind of an 80's thing so there's not a lot of pictures of them on the web, but this one with the tailgate dropped and unit folded out would give you an idea of why they would do the bumper like that.

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Richard

 

[96k1500]

I prefer weld on for the cleaner look, same reason I shaved the handle, on my old s-series I welded the tailgate shut also and and welded the fuel door shut

 

[dagen_1]

great write-up danny!

 

[Silvio Iacuone]

Great write up, I think I may have to do this to a Stepside.