How to make a Free bumper for overland....

[james399]

I was playing with my overland yet again today, and the wire bumper i made was eventually just wearing out from crashing it into so many things....

so i looked at what i had lying around, and came up with an idea for a front bumper... tell me what you guys think....

also my first tut... so please feel free to add to it, change it etc....

Pict1: This is the before picture, I was trying to go over my cell phone, and basically it would not go over it slowly, fully accelerating it would hit it and kind of jump over it...
i want more control....
so, this is what i did,

STEP 1: GO FIND THE PLASTIC PIECES THAT THE OL WAS STRAPPED TOO WHEN YOU GOT IT....
Pict2: plastic piece that you use

STEP 2: TAKE OFF THE UNDERPLATE (IN THE PICTURES I USE MY CHROME PLATED ONE SO IT IS EASILY IDENTIFIABLE... THE STOCK ONE IS EXACTLY THE SAME AND WILL WORK ALSO.)

STEP3: LINE UP THE UNDERPLATE WITH THE PLASTIC PIECE, BUT MAKE SURE TO LEAVE ENOUGH SPACE FOR THE FRONT OF YOUR OL BODY....
pict3: lining up the two pieces.
pict4: this is what i mean, by making sure you leave enough space for the body.

STEP4: TAKE A PEN OR A SHARP NEEDLE TOOL AND MARK THE PLASTIC THROUGH THE SCRE WHOLES.

STEP5: DRILL THE HOLE USING A DRILL BIT THAT FITS THE SCREW HOLES IN THE UNDERPLATE. DO IT BY HAND, THE PLASTIC IS VERY SOFT.
pict5: this is what it roughly should look like, when your done drilling

STEP6: TAKE A LARGE FLAT SANDER, AND MAKE THE BOTTOM OF THE OF THE PLASTIC PIECE SMOOTH....(that is really difficult to understand, so look at the pictures very carefully...)
pict6: plastic piece before sanding.
pict7: the sanding instrument that i used....
pict8: this is what it should look like after sanding.

step 7: All done... just put it all together... you have a few choices here.... if you are worried about axle clearance, just use the plastic piece with no underplate cover... you will still be able to go over things that are a little taller than half your tire size....
or you can put the underplate cover underneath the plastic piece....which is what i did, because i wanted to leave the protection for the suspension parts... you are lowering your axle clearance, but you will still be able to go over the same amount of stuff...
(you will also need some longer screws, i used the flat headed longer screws that was on the bottom of my xmod chasis, three hundred dollars worth of xmods = 2 usuable flat headed screws..lol)
pict 9 and 10 are front and side shots of the bumper installed on my H1
pict 11 and on, are pictures of my OL now easily and slowly going over my celly, which it was unable to do before....

total, if you are good with tools and with your hands, maybe 15 minutes... it took me longer to take all the pictures and write this tutorial than it took me to do the mod...

again my first tut... so let me know what you guys think...

[james399]

more picts

[james399]

thats the rest of the picts....

good luck....
its pretty straight forward, but it does an awesome job!!!

[james399]

oh and if you don't like the idea of the ugly plastic piece... paint it... thats what im doing tomorrow... im also gonna add some cut wires in the groove to give it a more realistic look.

[TeaQue]

Wow, that looks like it works pretty good! Now all you need to do is paint it black and add a scaled winch so it looks somewhat realistic

good idea

[HammerZ]

Painting it can work, but going over a few objects it would rake it off. Not much of a problem if you touch it up afterward. A well thought out tutorial.

[Aron]

Very nice job. I will look into this when I get time.

[james399]

when i have the plate over the plastic bumper ive noticed that on jumps the front of the body bottoms out...i.e. it does hit the bumper... which means that i do lose some articulation when both wheels are compressed at the same time...

however, individually there seems to be no loss in articulation of each tire, which means it should retain most of the articulation....

so i tried the bumper over the plate, and that seemed to work really well... the only problem is very noticble loss of ground clearance, because the plate is a bit angled...

therefore, i think the front bumper alone, will be the overall best combination...
it provides more clearance than the plate alone, or the plate and bumper combination...

it allows you to go over things more easily, and still provides some protection for your suspension parts....

*side note* its already painted silver... (not too huge a fan of the bling... but if you all couldn't tell, im totally a utilitarian.. lol...

anyways... im glad you all liked it...

[james399]

the paint is barely dry!!!

the first is showing articulation... there is a closeup which shows that the body is not touching the bumper.. and some random shots