JimWPB

In the distant past, I fabricated all of my own bumpers. These days, I see catalogs with nice looking aftermarket bumpers, all set up for winch mounting, for $200-300. My first reaction was that, at those prices, it doesn't pay for me to even order in the steel plate.

...then I looked at a few of them & saw how thin the sheet metal was.

Can anyone here recommend a heavier duty winch bumper for a 2-door JK? Preferably one that is constructed out of steel tubes that I can turn into 150psi air tanks.

Ryan0260

I'm running a Crawler Concept brawler bumper and it is a tank, although Icon purchased CC but they appear to be the same bumpers with the new name and logo.

JimWPB

A quick look at Icon's spec's shows their bumpers to be made from 3/16" plate steel with almost 1/8" thick tubing & a little bit of 1" thick steel for the shackle mounts. So far, I'm not seeing anything more heavily constructed from any other ready made retail source. In the past I built my stuff from beefier material. I'm shy about even using 1/4" plate to mount a 10k# winch. ...but this seems to be what's available today.

Thanks for the response.

resharp001

You can certainly build a bombproof bumper out of a lot thicker plate, but 3/16" plate is pretty much the standard for even the quality brands that have been around for decades. My PSC BFH front bumper is 3/16 as well. I think for myself, if I was dangling over a cliff, I'd be more concerned about the bolts going up into the bottom side of the winch and what is actually holding it to the bumper. I think one real benefit of building your own is the design options, and possibly recessing the winch down in the bumper itself so it is not blocking any of the airflow to the radiator. Even the after-market options that will lower the winch down between the frame rails a bit still block flow to the radiator. That said, y, the cost of materials is so much higher these days than they used to be.

Ryan0260

I'm running a 12,500 lb winch and never had an issue or felt like the bumper would fail. Your line would probably snap before a good quality bumper would be an issue, but I always try to find US made if possible. These well known brands get abused all the time and I don't recall hearing about many failures.

JimWPB

The first Jeep bumper I made was for the back of my 77 CJ. I made that out of 8" steel channel. I welded in some 3/8" gussets that I used to mount a 2" receiver hitch. I also gusseted up 2 hard points that got old school 2-bolt tow hooks mounted to them. The front bumper on that one was padded by a piece of wooden rail road tie that was affectionately referred to as "the tooth pick". 2 tow hooks were bolted directly the the top of the frame in that area. Those bumpers later got swapped to my 82 CJ when I sold the 77.

The next bumper I built went on a 1 ton pick up. It was made from 8" schedule 80 pipe. I built side gussets out of 3/8" plate & used 2 pieces of 4" structural tubing for the cross tubes on the push bar section. I also welded in some threaded inserts & bolted up a snow plow frame there in the winter. The push bar was my upper plow frame. I mounted the pump & ram directly to it. The main 8" pipe doubled as an air tank. That bumper was built after a few friends had totaled their cars by hitting deer.

These bumpers were fabricated from what I could find in scrap yards, & purchase with the lowest possible by-the-pound pricing.

I later built some bumpers out of 6" schedule 40 pipe, again using the pipe as an air tank. These bumpers were more simple & had a more trim look to them. They lacked the push bar.

...but, now everyone seems to be using 3/16" thick steel or less, & as you said, nobody seems to be crying foul regarding the results. So perhaps I overdid it a bit back in the old days.

This old dog is still capable of learning a few new tricks. I thank you both for the insight you provided.

JimWPB

I recently added a piece of perforated aluminum behind my grill to protect the radiator from road stones. When I did it, I was concerned about the potential for reduced air flow. That was an issue on the old CJs. The ones I had seemed to have just about enough cooling capacity to get by with. So far, my JK hasn't seen any abnormal temperatures that I've noticed. Here in South Florida, the average temperature has been between the low 80's & low 90's lately, & I do run the A/C non-stop. It's not Phoenix hot around here, but we have been seeing genuine summer weather. I'll continue to keep an eye on the engine temperature. Thanks for reminding me.