Frontera Recovery Bumper

Had been toying with the idea of building a rear bumper with recovery points for a while and after killing the original bumper it forced me into actually getting it built.

The main concern was making sure not only the recovery points were strong enough but also the chassis mounts were going to be up to the job.  I had seen a few other trucks with weld on D rings that looked like they would do the job and after some internet searching I found a supplier.  The ones I opted for were rated up to 15T so should do the job.  Having found the D rings, I needed to make sure that whatever they were attached to was not going to be a weak point.  For this I used some 10mm steel plate, cut it into 125mm x 100mm squares and had a local fabricator weld the D rings onto these plates for me.

Next up was the bumper itself, this was 100mm x 60mm x 3mm box to which I tacked some 6mm brackets.

Then the recovery plates were tacked in place and some 5mm thick fillets cut and attached so that the recovery points were tied into the bumper brackets.  Once the bumper was test fitted to make sure it was all going to line up OK, all the joints were seam welded.

Having made the bumper I didn’t think the std 10mm bolts and chassis were up to the job of holding it in place. The original 10mm nuts and bolts were replaced with 12mm jobbies and some extra 6mm plate welded onto the rear chassis to provide an additional 2 mounting points on both sides just in case.

After cleaning and painting this is what it looks like

Still not quite there though, next on the list is to relocate the number plate onto the rear door and move the fuel tank up further into the chassis.