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Jeep JKU New Front Bumper
- Thread starter zmotorsports
- Start date
koditten
Well-known member
When is that steel cable getting replaced with kevlar?
Everything else is top notch. Great job!
KO
Everything else is top notch. Great job!
KO
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zmotorsports
ALLIANCE MEMBER
Mike,
I have a couple of questions if you don't mind.
1. Where did you source the D ring mounts?
2. Do you have any pictures of the underside of the bumper?
3. Did you add plates to the underside of the outer wings?
4. Now that you have had it completed for a while is there anything you would do different or improve?
Your bumper is the best one I have seen out there and I plan to build mine very similar to yours. I might make it a bit narrower but not much as I like the looks of yours. Thanks for the great write up.
Dan
I have a couple of questions if you don't mind.
1. Where did you source the D ring mounts?
2. Do you have any pictures of the underside of the bumper?
3. Did you add plates to the underside of the outer wings?
4. Now that you have had it completed for a while is there anything you would do different or improve?
Your bumper is the best one I have seen out there and I plan to build mine very similar to yours. I might make it a bit narrower but not much as I like the looks of yours. Thanks for the great write up.
Dan
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zmotorsports
ALLIANCE MEMBER
Dan, thank you very much for the compliments.
The "D" ring mounts came Balistic Fab. They were a bit longer than the ones from A to Z Fabrication. This allowed me to have them anchor to the mounting bracket right at the frame end and then protrude through the front facia.
I don't have any pictures of the underside but there really isn't anything under there. The center section that holds the winch is the only part that is actually under the bumper. Everything else was fabricated off of the that center section.
No fish-plating on the underside. The sides are beveled and welded directly to the center section with full penetration and then just a quick kiss with a blend disk to flatten them off. There is enough triangulation with the boxing of the sides that really add to the strength.
So far nothing I would do differently. If Utah didn't have the bumper width laws we do I would have liked to do a stubby but as it is going with the mid-width allows me to be fully legal and I haven't run up against an obstacle where I have made contact yet. Luckily I had built two previous bumpers on past Jeep ZJ's and I pretty much knew what I liked and how to keep the approach angles in check.
I personally don't see anything really off the charts about my bumpers but for some reason at local runs, Moab and other times I have had people approach me to ask what brand they are and where I got them. Even at dinner the other night my wife and I came out to go home and a guy was crawling around under the front of our Jeep looking at the bumper. He and I spend about an hour talking Jeeps which I don't think either of our wives were all too happy about.
He kept walking around our Jeep and asking about everything he saw and I was just trying to keep up with all of the questions he was asking.Mike.
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zmotorsports
ALLIANCE MEMBER
I think what's different (at least to me) is that your bumper doesn't look too bulky/chunky. Many of the bumpers I've looked at look to "short and fat" to me. That bulky look just doesn't do it for me.
Personally I don't care for those huge bolt on recovery points as well. Unfortunately this is how the front bumpers are attached on the JK/JKU's. I had to get kind of creative in order to hide the fasteners yet tie directly to the frame horns and make sure strength wasn't sacrificed. I also like the clean, sleek look more than the bulky look you are referring to.
Thanks again Dan.
Mike.
Make the switch, once you go synthetic you will wonder how you lived without it.
Really nice work on the bumper. I only wish mine was that clean.
ddawg16
Well-known member
As a fellow jeeper.....nice
NASTYZEN
Well-known member
Nicely done Mike, as per usual. It's great when you can meet function with esthetics.
gtmorgan89
Well-known member
- Joined
- Feb 2, 2011
- Messages
- 99
Built not bought 
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zmotorsports
ALLIANCE MEMBER
Thanks guys for your comments. I really appreciate it.
Mike.
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zmotorsports
ALLIANCE MEMBER
MrBreeze
Well-known member
Kudos on the fabrication! Time to get out and wheel! 
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zmotorsports
ALLIANCE MEMBER
Kudos on the fabrication! Time to get out and wheel!
Thank you. I don't get out nearly as much as I would like. Club run once a month and then we generally try to get out at least one additional time. It makes me really look forward to our week long trips where we wheel every day.
Mike.
@zmotorsports Mike, as a new first time new jeep owner, and a long time admirer of yours, I was hoping you might still have the pictures that were supposed to be on this post (I know its more than 10 years old, so not holding my breath) but I'd love to see what you did here...I had a WARN Rockcrawler front winch bumper along with a WARN Powerplant winch/compressor combo on my Jeep that I had picked up at a reasonable price for the package when I first started building my Jeep. However, now after owning if for a year and a half and having more than a few people give me a hard time for having a "purchased" bumper on my Jeep, I decided it was time to sell the old winch and bumper and fabricate a new one.
I also wanted to sink the winch down into the bumper as low as possible to keep the radiator unobstructed for better airflow while I was at it.
I am putting together an on board air system, so for a winch I just needed a good solid brute. I went with the WARN 9.5XP which has the series-parallel wound 6 HP motor and old style contactor box.
This is the bumper/winch combo that I removed.
Off with the old.
First order of business was to mock up a cardboard template for the winch mounting plate and decide how to tie it into the frame rails.
Bumper attachment points fabricated and the winch mounting plate tacked into place.
New winch showed up.
Deciding on placement.
Along with the eight (8) 1/2" grade 8 bolts holding the bumper assembly on to the frame rails I also added two 5/16" tabs welded to the frame rails that the back of the winch mounting plate will bolt to with two 3/8" grade 8 bolts.
For the "D" ring/recovery points, I welded them directly to the frame attachment points for starters.
I then cut the opening for the roller fairlead as well as the two "D" ring/recovery points to protrude through the front of the bumper. This will allow the "D" rings to pull on the entire assembly rather than just the outside front section which could pull it away from the mounting points. This also keeps my attachment points hidden and out of sight for a much cleaner look.
Front section of 3/16" P&O welded on.
"D" rings welded to front section.
Test fitting the top section with the opening cut for the winch.
Top section welded on. By keeping the fitment nice and tight inside corner to inside corner allows a nice weld bead with very, very little dressing to make a nice rounded corner and removing hardly any weld. I also weld the backside for added insurance.
Now to add the left and right ears of the bumper.
Final welding done and metal finished.
Test fit now with the winch and then I can add my grille hoop and off to the powder coater it goes.
I will post up some pics of it after I get it back from the powder coater as well as once I get it installed on the Jeep.
Mike.
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zmotorsports
ALLIANCE MEMBER
I'll have to see if I have any readily available. The ones in this thread were lost during the Tinypic debacle.
Congrats on your first Jeep. It's all downhill from here. JEEP, Just Empty Every Pocket.
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zmotorsports
ALLIANCE MEMBER
I found some. WOW, this goes back a day or two. Hope these are helpful as it's been about 13+ years or so since I built my bumpers. You may have to go back through the descriptions in the first few posts to make sense of the pictures. but I'll post up all of the pictures that I have. As you can see in the mounting pictures, I mounted directly to the frame horns as well as placed my recovery points directly in line with the frame horns and mounting points to allow a direct pull without any distortions on the steel. I can say now that after all these years I don't even have as much as a crack in the powder coating, so I feel the mounting points and recovery points were well placed.
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zmotorsports
ALLIANCE MEMBER
Some more pictures of the front bumper.
Unfortunately, that is all I have of the actual fabrication process, but hopefully you can get a feel for the design and execution.
Unfortunately, that is all I have of the actual fabrication process, but hopefully you can get a feel for the design and execution.
Stunning work as usual Mike, Thank you very much for digging out the old pictures.
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zmotorsports
ALLIANCE MEMBER
Thank you, glad they were helpful. I was pleased to find I still had them saved and hadn't lost them forever.