Ever mount a light bar like this?

[Steve Cloud]

Saw this truck this weekend, and snapped a photo. I've never seen a light bar mounted directly to the bumper. Saw the truck later in a parking lot, and saw that it was mounted directly to the top of the painted portion of the bumper, and was a curved light bar. Any of you ever mount one like this? Would it be stable?

 

[kurek]

My truck had the Tradesman plain black bumper so it might not be exactly the same as the one depicted there, but it just had a plastic filler below that plastic panel which I doubt would remain very rigid in the course of bouncing around. There's the top edge of the bumper it might be possible to tie into, to stiffen it.

Because those light bars generally don't have any kind of lens or projector ahead of the diode and phosphor assembly they just spam out light in the near field anyway, and bounce is more of an effect of consequence with distance lighting. If you are buying auxiliary lighting to get early warning of deer and stock in the road at travel speeds you'd want a lamp with clean optics and mounted tight - not a glare bar. If you're equipping lights for near field tasks (fence work, irrigation, etc) they won't bounce if your truck is stationary anyway.

 

[Steve Cloud]

That's what I was wondering about. Wasn't sure there was anything very solid under that painted bumper piece.

 

[69GWC]

Not quit the same thing but I mounted to pods on the lower part of my Express bumper and its all plastic and they dont bouce any, was something I worried about as well.

 

[JoeCo]

There's been a few members on here who have done it that way, I believe. Still thinking of how to mount my lightbar on my longhorn, same problem but I don't want to drill into the bumper.

 

[Rebelrouser]

I made my own brackets so I could mount mine in the lower section of the bumper. That's the only place I found feasible to put one of these. Plus I have 4 Rigid's mounted behind the grille mounted on a special all aluminum bracketry so as to not to rust.

 

[bryce88]

Saw this truck this weekend, and snapped a photo. I've never seen a light bar mounted directly to the bumper. Saw the truck later in a parking lot, and saw that it was mounted directly to the top of the painted portion of the bumper, and was a curved light bar. Any of you ever mount one like this? Would it be stable?

If you ever have to take the grille off, like for a headlight bulb, your light bar would be in the way...

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[waynestractor]

View attachment 181983 View attachment 181984 I made my own brackets so I could mount mine in the lower section of the bumper. That's the only place I found feasible to put one of these. Plus I have 4 Rigid's mounted behind the grille mounted on a special all aluminum bracketry so as to not to rust.

Is it just an illusion, or are most of those LEDs out?

 

[Steve Cloud]

Is it just an illusion, or are most of those LEDs out?

It does look like that.

 

[Bigpaul13]

View attachment 181983 View attachment 181984 I made my own brackets so I could mount mine in the lower section of the bumper. That's the only place I found feasible to put one of these. Plus I have 4 Rigid's mounted behind the grille mounted on a special all aluminum bracketry so as to not to rust.

I like that location for the switches, is it a pain to mount them there? How did you remove the plastic piece?

 

[kurek]

Is it just an illusion, or are most of those LEDs out?

I'm guessing that's an illusion from this being a middle quality lamp, good enough quality to put a lens in front of the LED's but not quite premium enough to maintain precision throughout the assembly. It's probably a single piece molded plastic lens array in front of a single piece PCB with a single piece molded reflector array between them, easy to assemble but difficult to keep absolutely equal at all points.

 

[madtrucker2016]

I have same truck color and all but really I would love to put those type of lights on my ride. But not really good spot with the bumper and the tow hooks ,and to put on the roof is to commercial looking for me ,you know like a tow truck or something

 

[Rebelrouser]

Yes it is an illusion as that light is brand new. The light isn't on just the sun reflecting off of it. The switches were a little work yes but I think worth in the end. Very convenient where they are though. When they are flipped on there is a green light that comes on in the on position. It is s little time consuming and also a little patience is involved. If I remember correctly the dash cluster surround has to be removed. There are 3 7mm(phillips) screws in the upper piece. If you have a tilt make sure it is in the down position. It's not that hard. I bought those switched off of Amazon. Package of 5 I think. Real inexpensive too. Good luck.........

 

[Bigpaul13]

Yes it is an illusion as that light is brand new. The light isn't on just the sun reflecting off of it. The switches were a little work yes but I think worth in the end. Very convenient where they are though. When they are flipped on there is a green light that comes on in the on position. It is s little time consuming and also a little patience is involved. If I remember correctly the dash cluster surround has to be removed. There are 3 7mm(phillips) screws in the upper piece. If you have a tilt make sure it is in the down position. It's not that hard. I bought those switched off of Amazon. Package of 5 I think. Real inexpensive too. Good luck.........

Thanks, I'll try and remove it this weekend and see how it goes.

 

[Steve Cloud]

I have same truck color and all but really I would love to put those type of lights on my ride. But not really good spot with the bumper and the tow hooks ,and to put on the roof is to commercial looking for me ,you know like a tow truck or something

There is another forum member here that mounted a curved bar under the bumper, and it turned out pretty nice. Here are two of his photos:

 

[blackbetty14]

That’s my truck above. Works fine and keeps the lines of the truck as the are from the factory. The problem is it’s lower to the ground so foreground light is more so the light carries less as these bars light patterns are more flood/30* spot. The light in the above pic is a curved 30” single row spot pattern. It’s for broad light in conjunction with my rigid SRQ pros in the tow hook areas which are for my distance. The bar is by rough country and I got it for $100 in scratch and dent (normally $200-$250). Ive had 3 cheap bars and I’ve installed 2 on friends trucks and the roughcountry is very nice and pulls 12amps where I had a 42” dual row only pull 8amps. So it’s very bright for a single row and hides well under the truck.

 

[blackbetty14]

I originally wanted to put it on top of the front bumper like the OPs pick but couldn’t bring myself to drill the bumper and pulling it to yank the grill for headlights or something would be annoying.

 

[Random_Walk]

Saw this truck this weekend, and snapped a photo. I've never seen a light bar mounted directly to the bumper. Saw the truck later in a parking lot, and saw that it was mounted directly to the top of the painted portion of the bumper, and was a curved light bar. Any of you ever mount one like this? Would it be stable?

I gotta vote no... as often as I have had to pop the grille off, that would sit right in the way...

 

[Michael]

Saw this truck this weekend, and snapped a photo. I've never seen a light bar mounted directly to the bumper. Saw the truck later in a parking lot, and saw that it was mounted directly to the top of the painted portion of the bumper, and was a curved light bar. Any of you ever mount one like this? Would it be stable?

I've seen a truck that had a light bar mounted like that too. That one looks like a strait bar, the one I saw had a curved bar. He's from Alaska and uses it out on the open road where roads have less traffic and aren't in as good of shape as they are down in the lower 48. He didn't seem to have any problems with the way the light operates in that spot. I didn't think to ask if he needed to put in any extra support for it to mount it there. I really liked the way it looked there.

 

[Michael]

If you ever have to take the grille off, like for a headlight bulb, your light bar would be in the way...

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Why would you take the grille off to replace the headlight bulb? I've replaced my bulbs without removing the grill.