Northwest Trail Innovations U-Weld Bumper. Yay or nay?

[SkyGuy41]

Hey all you bumper gurus, I've been playing around with the idea of getting a bumper for my 04 runner. As we all know they can be pricey, especially for my first choice in the matter, Shrockworks. I was wondering if any of you have experience with this company Northwest Trail Innovations? Specifically the bumper kit that you weld. I've seen some info regarding 3rd gens but not much on 4th gens. I have a very good welder to do it for me so that's not the issue. Just curious to what you guys and gals think. Is it worth it considering the price point? Thanks for any insight.

2003-2009 Toyota 4Runner weld together winch bumper kit

 

[Drunner97]

sub'd for the outcome if you do decide to do it. I'm curious to see how hard it ends up being to put together. If it's not too bad and I can find a welder to do it for a decent price that's not a bad looking bumper.

 

[BOSMECH]

I too would like to see the final product and how difficult it was to assemble and install and the quality of it.
It looks like a nice bumper

 

[rick1987]

I would love to find one myself, I have my own machine.

I'm nervous about completely making my own tho, I don't want to get it finished and not like the final product.

 

[cpark_12]

I was a click away from pulling the trigger on a Relentless Fabrications DIY bumper about 2 weeks ago. I've seen a few threads on TacomaWorld about them. They look fairly straight forward to put together if you can weld. This bumper has more individual parts to weld together than the Relentless one, but I would think for the price of this one, go for it!

 

[rick1987]

I was a click away from pulling the trigger on a Relentless Fabrications DIY bumper about 2 weeks ago. I've seen a few threads on TacomaWorld about them. They look fairly straight forward to put together if you can weld. This bumper has more individual parts to weld together than the Relentless one, but I would think for the price of this one, go for it!

What other options are out there for a weld it yourself bumper?

I will probably hold off for a year or so. I just ordered the led bar bracket and light bar.

 

[cpark_12]

What other options are out there for a weld it yourself bumper?

I will probably hold off for a year or so. I just ordered the led bar bracket and light bar.

Relentless off-road Fabrication

That's the only other one I've seen in all of my searching

 

[LOBO79]

Relentless off-road Fabrication

That's the only other one I've seen in all of my searching

Tagging this

 

[having fun]

Wish this option was available when I bought mine.
Not all kits will be a tight fit to weld like a puzzle, it will be tight and gaps on connecting piece and will have to play a little.

I'm working on a rear DIY kit at the moment and have seen proto types just tacked together.

Hummmm..... For that price, might have to think about grabbing a couple kits and put them together for resell, just a though at the moment.

 

[techno]

I have not read the assembly instruction that these kits come with, so I don't know how easy/hard they claim the process to be, but I do have lots of experience with sheetmetal welding and jig design.
All of the off-the-shelf bumpers you can buy are welded together in jigs. A jig is a frame/template for holding all the separate parts together exactly as they need to be before it goes anywhere near the vehicle. This ensures that finished product matches up and aligns with the vehicle body lines and chassis mounting locations. Most jigs are designed with compensation for heat warping and stresses that are induced during welding. Therefore, my only concern with diy kits is the ease of assembly and making sure everything is perfectly in position, and that warpage is kept to a minimum. There's no way the parts could be fully welded with it bolted on, so lots of finish welding would need to be done without jigs to hold things properly in place. Simply thinking the parts are just welded together is, to me, a massive oversimplification. Keep that in mind.

 

[having fun]

/\..... Well stated as I have done fabrication on iron work for several yrs. My rack was pretty easy,used my ride as a jig.