What thickness for a plate bumper

[IBallEngineer]

I think, since it's a daily driver and I travel 75 miles to work and back, so 150 miles a week, I'm going to replace it with an OEM. This way I don't end with regret.
Anyone know where I can get a black front OEM without the flare holes reasonably priced?

Sheesh that barely gets your engine warm...

 

[masphx]

I think, since it's a daily driver and I travel 75 miles to work and back, so 150 miles a week, I'm going to replace it with an OEM. This way I don't end with regret.
Anyone know where I can get a black front OEM without the flare holes reasonably priced?

Honestly I would go with the arb tacoma bumper. Price is good $800-900. Comes powder coated. It is a 'light' steel bumper. It is strong as they put good angle bends in the steel. It adds a crush zone to your rig and is designed to work with your airbags. Instead of most of these cooler newer thicker steel bumpers it with bend and crumple in a crash (to an extent). Not remining in the same basic shape and causing more damage. If you are lucky you can find one on cl. I have about $450 into mine after a cl find and repaint. It is not the coolest bumper and many will say is dated but for me it gets the job done and I feel safer being behind it.

 

[MojaveMadMan]

Yea I can understand that, hell the majority of your bumper is 1/4" thick which is huge and likewise is the cost. I still question the $700 mark, even with mounting hardware I don't see that costing that much unless you are using literally dozens of 1" diameter grade 8 bolts that are like 6" long.

So when I reference the $700 number there are a lot of things I am talking about here. One important thing I am also talking about it that this is a bumper that is built to a quality comparable with what you can buy. Not a rushed together bumper someone made with their friend this one time. I personally value quality so I spend the money required to build quality. [MENTION=102597]IBallEngineer[/MENTION] has a good list for cost of materials. I know for the last 4runner bumper I built, it was for a guy who beats the living crap out of his rig. It was all 3/16" and 1/4" mounts.

-two 2'x4' sheets of 3/16" thick plate
-one 2'x4' sheet of 1/4" thick plate
-20' of 1 1/2" by 0.120 wall tubing
-4' of 1" by 0.120 wall tubing
-12" of 1" by 0.25 wall DOM tubing
-four grade 8 1/2" x 4" bolts
-four grade 8 lock nuts
-eight grade 8 lock washers
-for 10M x 1" bolts
-powder coating
-aprox 15 cut off wheels (cutting various things even though I also have a plasma, you still need to do alot the old fashioned way
-aprox 5 flap sanding wheels (these are 4" and 7")
-aprox 4 flat sanding disks (used for final sanding)
-3 plasma tips
-3 welding tips
-1 tank of welding gas
-1 smaller spool of welding wire
-2 rotobroach drill bits that broke
-a $140 electricity bill vs my normal $80 bill

Then there are the costs you don't see:
-Wear and tear on all of my equipment and what all those things cost to buy. Welder, plasma cutter, drill press, angle grinder, vice, 20 ton press, press break, various drill bits. You may not think about this, but I notice my welder is not what it used to be 8 years ago when I purchased it new. These things do have a life limit and every time I build something it goes down.
-Most important is my time! I spent at least 80 hours on this bumper from start to completely finished. I pride myself in quality and spent the time required to make sure it was perfect. I make roughly $30 an hour at work, so I could have made $2400 if I had just worked extra hours and paid cash for this ting. It breaks down to 23 hours of work, or 3 days... I built this for a customer because it is fun for me, but honestly I should have just worked 3 Saturdays and I could have made the money much easier...

The moral of these long winded stories is not to tell people not to fabricate. The point is to tell you that this needs to be something you truly desire! IF you have always wanted to learn to fabricate so that you can build a skill and maybe do it later as a profession, then it is worth it. If you really love to fabricate things and derive a lot of pride in making your own things, then it is worth it. But if you are doing it to save a few bucks, don't! Because when it is all said and done in money and time, you lose in most cases. Like iballengineer said, I charge substantially more money for custom bumpers than what you can get from CBI or 4x inovations. They make great parts and are able to sell for less and turn a profit because they make them in bulk. But when you do one off custom stuff, there is an additional cost!

I have said this to a few people, if I could do it all again I would just go buy one from a company, and then tweak it to my desire next time...

 

[T4Rscott]

Is c channel strong enough?

 

[Bandit Runner]

Is c channel strong enough?

Depending on the size and thickness, and how the bumper is designed, it could be strong enough.

 

[RAD4Runner]

I have very strong feelings about this subject...... Will you be deep in mud and snow and winching all the time. Going places where you will be taking rock and tree branch hits a lot? If so than thicker is better.
...
But if you want it for protection just in case. If you hit a deer at night on a mountain road. If you are in open places where you may only hit something if things are going wrong. Then you really should consider not going so thick.
...
The reason I say this is a front bumper will very quickly robe your 4runner of power...

I share this line of thought, given my use of the MoreFunner - get me to trailhead and back. I want the bumper to absorb some of the impact so all is not transmitted to the frame, but i want it sturdy enough to protect the radiator and engine.
If 1/8-inch have been proven and tested on ARB's in the Australian Outback, then that's good enough ...
Cheers!

 

[Kryptoroxx]

I have been messing around with putting ribs in 1/8th and the strength increases dramatically. Still not sure it could do say belly pan duty but it could do bumper duty just fine IMO. Its all in how you build it. Angles and braces will make geometry work for you rather than against you. I spend lots and lots of time analyzing the angles, forces, impact zones, and spreading the force of impacts out. You could build an Off-Road bumper out of feathers if you could spread the impact force out in the design.

Case in point while I was overseas we started using balloon type jacks that rapidly inflated to change tires with.