Nice Mike! Now I'll be jealous of your truck!:naughty:
That's the way a rear bumper should be done! The main reason that aft crossmember on the frame was located back so far is to allow room for the spare tire up underneath.
That crossmember has got to go or in my thinking just be relocated forward up next to the aft body mounts to gain precious departure angle.
Plating over that thing like most of these other bumpers doesn't gain anything in the way of departure angle. That plastic bumper cover we have now just pushes up and hits the steel crossmember when going up a steep incline now so plating over it will actually lose departure angle.
I'm going to try and work with local fab guru,Justin at Rocktek to have one custom designed for my truck this winter. If not ,I'll be headed back to Ca. next summer to have Luke build one for me!!:driving: Love the way he angles that up back there to gain even more.
I'ma hafta nerd out on this one and point out that I gained almost 5 degrees of departure by "plating" the existing rear cross member. The two biggest things that kill our departure angle in stock form are A. The spare tire (looks like our trucks have a saggy diaper in the back) B. The tow hitch. For those who don't two, this is easy to remove but unless you also take your spare out from underneath your not gaining anything. The Trail Edition has about 2 inches of foam and two coverings on top of the rear crossmember, further sacrificing the departure angle.
If they do end up chopping the rear up I am veeeeery anxious to see their design, it looks like these guys have great style AND great functionality.
Mike: I think I asked you before, but is the bumper going to be bolted on and removable or permanently welded to the frame?
Its gonna be a long couple months while we all wait, you gotta be getting impatient already :hungry:
WIll you be able to keep us posted with photos of the progress?
Heres a couple pics i scribbled up with my trusty crayon showing the departure angle differences. They are not accurate or at the right angle I know, but they illustrate the point -
OEM departure angle is in yellow (to the bottom of the tow hitch), the horizontal blue line represents the bottom of the frame rail, the vertical blue line represents the end of the rear crossmember. From what I could tell from my build you have about 2" of the rear crossmember sticking past the rear hatch, cutting that out and gaining that 2" would be huge. It would reaaaalllly improve the departure angle, something this truck desperately needs.
