CocaineCowboy
Junior Member
- Joined
- Sep 7, 2016
- Posts
- 8
- Reaction score
- 0
- Ram Year
- 1998
- Engine
- Magnum 5.9 360
I own a 1998 Dodge Ram 1500 4x4. It's mostly stock, apart from what I believe is a 2 1/2'' lift done by a previous owner. I'm looking to make some tube bumpers for the truck front and rear, along with some rock sliders. I don't have a whole lot of experience welding, grinding, or designing anything with metal. I have at my disposal as of this time approx. 35 ft of 2'' steel tubing, approx. 5 ft of flat stock steel 1/8'' thick, some with bends (they sued to be power boxes). I'm looking to build a bumper for the front and rear that will give me more protection, allow for a winch (at a later time) and give me better approach and departure angles. My father has a cheap Harbor Freight 220 amp welder he said he will lend me for the project. But, I don't know where to start. For one thing, I don't know if 1/8'' flat stock is strong enough for offroad use (most of the offroad venues in the area include mud, dirt, sand, hills, rocks, etc.). Design is another thing I had questions about. My original thoughts were to reuse the inner bumper structure of the old bumper and simply weld a few bent tubes to that, but it would look pretty bad and not be as strong as I thought. My current thought is to have 2 bars follow the original shape of the bumper, but stick out a few inches farther (to clear winch and hood) and be raised slightly higher up (better approach) and then create a top bar equal with the hood as a sort of protection for the radiator. The problem with that is I'm not sure I'll have enough tubing to make it work. Any tips or ideas would be great. (I'm ditching the original bumpers because they are mangled from an accident before I got the truck.)
