ChuckE2009
Silver Member
- Joined
- Jun 4, 2010
- Messages
- 133
Goodmorning Ladies and Gentlemen of TBN!!
Oh man, where to begin...
So in September of 2011, I picked up this 2011 Silverado... I really like the truck, but lets face it, the OEM bumpers were nothing special. The rear bumper was okay, but the front bumper was almost straight plastic, and made the whole truck look like a bumper car IMHO... It had about 4" of ground clearance, and would scrape on those cement blocks at the end of your parking spot. But what was worse? There's literally no where to tie anything off to... The higher-end Silverados have these nice front tow hooks, but mine didnt.
Needless to say, the OEM bumpers had to go.
It was a project I'd wanted to do literally since I bought the truck, just never did. I procrastinated all summer, then it got cold and school started...
But then...
I had two weeks off for Christmas Break, and so I had time on my hands. My good friend Wes said he was coming back from college, and my steel yard informed me that they'd just dropped the price of "Flat Salvage" by 7 cents per pound. The stars lined up in a row, and I knew it was now or never.
I bought somewhere around $400 worth of materials, and got to work.
I never made up a plan or anything, just went for it pretty much. It was a ton of work. I even had to buy a new Impact wrench to get the stock front bumper off.
What were my goals:
1) They have to look awesome.
2) They have to be sturdier than the stock bumpers.
3) They MUST have pulling-points on them.
So I went at it. These are teaser pics... I took them before the bumpers were painted (With engine enamel for that added durability), and mounted 100% on the truck, hence the front one is a little lop-sided:
But I knew I couldn't stop there.
They needed to be strong... I wanted to build them so they could handle more pulling than the truck could put out, just for the peace of mind.
I put some 10" plate gussets on the back bumper, which ran from the frame mounts, to the face of the bumper, to prevent it from bending if I pulled or shock loaded against something.
And I knew I'd have to get creative on the front bumper. Worst case scenario was it "bowed" if I pulled too hard. So, I made some plate gussets for it, too, and I ran a pipe right behind the face to keep the mounts spread to where they needed to be:
While I was at it, I put 3/8" plate blocks between the "D" rings and the bumper face, and held them down with 6 passes of 7018 for good measure.
I'm extremely pleased with how they turned out. They took somewhere in the neighborhood of 59 work hours to complete, over the course of 5 build days.
My YouTube audience seemed to enjoy the videos, so I figured I'd share them on here, as well. They cover the build from start to finish, 100% of the way through. I can't really word everything we did all that well, so, I just made the videos about it... Hope y'all enjoy them, as much as I enjoyed making them
Oh man, where to begin...
So in September of 2011, I picked up this 2011 Silverado... I really like the truck, but lets face it, the OEM bumpers were nothing special. The rear bumper was okay, but the front bumper was almost straight plastic, and made the whole truck look like a bumper car IMHO... It had about 4" of ground clearance, and would scrape on those cement blocks at the end of your parking spot. But what was worse? There's literally no where to tie anything off to... The higher-end Silverados have these nice front tow hooks, but mine didnt.
Needless to say, the OEM bumpers had to go.
It was a project I'd wanted to do literally since I bought the truck, just never did. I procrastinated all summer, then it got cold and school started...
But then...
I had two weeks off for Christmas Break, and so I had time on my hands. My good friend Wes said he was coming back from college, and my steel yard informed me that they'd just dropped the price of "Flat Salvage" by 7 cents per pound. The stars lined up in a row, and I knew it was now or never.
I bought somewhere around $400 worth of materials, and got to work.
I never made up a plan or anything, just went for it pretty much. It was a ton of work. I even had to buy a new Impact wrench to get the stock front bumper off.
What were my goals:
1) They have to look awesome.
2) They have to be sturdier than the stock bumpers.
3) They MUST have pulling-points on them.
So I went at it. These are teaser pics... I took them before the bumpers were painted (With engine enamel for that added durability), and mounted 100% on the truck, hence the front one is a little lop-sided:
But I knew I couldn't stop there.
They needed to be strong... I wanted to build them so they could handle more pulling than the truck could put out, just for the peace of mind.
I put some 10" plate gussets on the back bumper, which ran from the frame mounts, to the face of the bumper, to prevent it from bending if I pulled or shock loaded against something.
And I knew I'd have to get creative on the front bumper. Worst case scenario was it "bowed" if I pulled too hard. So, I made some plate gussets for it, too, and I ran a pipe right behind the face to keep the mounts spread to where they needed to be:
While I was at it, I put 3/8" plate blocks between the "D" rings and the bumper face, and held them down with 6 passes of 7018 for good measure.
I'm extremely pleased with how they turned out. They took somewhere in the neighborhood of 59 work hours to complete, over the course of 5 build days.
My YouTube audience seemed to enjoy the videos, so I figured I'd share them on here, as well. They cover the build from start to finish, 100% of the way through. I can't really word everything we did all that well, so, I just made the videos about it... Hope y'all enjoy them, as much as I enjoyed making them
