New Truck Bumpers Project Pics.

[6]

So after plow season my bumpers that where already iffy where done. I wanted new ones, i wanted more ground clearance and a winch, and something that can take a hit better..

Looked around and found Move Bumpers..they sell you the tube and plate and you build it.

How the kit showed up
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None of the parts in the kit are labeled. The directions are pretty much "figure it out" and the kit I got didn't fully fit my truck. Needed to make a couple small parts and had to do a little modification of the truck.

Center section tacked up.
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I reached out to the company about this. They looked into it said it was a "design oversight" and offered to make new pieces and send them. I did don't worry about it. But whomever buys the kit next shouldn't have these issues..

Assembled
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On the truck..
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This isn't to everyone's taste. The current Trent of bumpers that look like a boat deck don't do it for me and on the farm this is what I need.. but they do have other styles.

It was a fun project, I still have a little work to do because I want to fit my plow with it on and they share the lower mounts, but all in all its almost done. Paint in bed liner or frame pant then mount the winch and that's that.

This was probably a total assy time of 8-12 hours and luckily I had an extra guy. It would have been longer with one person, that is for sure!

I got the rear too...

[6]

Got it done and on. Painted it with a brush and Frame paint, so the paint isn't glorious, but it's tough. I'll probably put a coat of spray on bed liner over it to hide some of the brush marks.. but over all I'm pretty happy with it. IMG_20220324_112840.jpg
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[rpcraft]

I was looking at picking up a weld together kit from them as well for my K5, for both the front and rear. The price with shipping ain't bad at all with the materials you get. I think they quoted me around 800 bucks or so for both. Nice job on the weld out. FWIW some of the best and toughest paint I have ever found is that black farm paint in gallon cans at tractor supply and also Rustoleum. Looks like you did great their man!

[6]

I was looking at picking up a weld together kit from them as well for my K5, for both the front and rear. The price with shipping ain't bad at all with the materials you get. I think they quoted me around 800 bucks or so for both. Nice job on the weld out. FWIW some of the best and toughest paint I have ever found is that black farm paint in gallon cans at tractor supply and also Rustoleum. Looks like you did great their man!

I think after options, shipping, expedition of processing et, the front was in the $680 range and the rear was in the $550 range. I don't exactly remember.

They did end up cutting me a little deal afterwards because I found a small issue with the kit that they redesigning and changing moving forward, so they gave me a set of their lights for $50 shipped. That was cool of them.

This Chassis Saver stuff is ruthless tough. But you don't want to get it on ANYTHING you don't want black.
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I just bought a new gun and some reducer so I can sacrifice my old gun to try new spray the rear bumper instead of brush it. We will see.


I'd definitely recommend Move kits. If I'm going to do the dually bumpers I'm probably going to get the precision kits for that. It doesn't need the winch or the clearance my truck does.

Working on the rear now.

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[6]

If you get the Embark kits get a friend for a few hours to help with the bars. You can get most of it together solo but setting and tacking a friend is a huge help.

Not just setting and holding them, but after tacking we had to move them around a little and have someone pressure the tubes into where we wanted them. Lots of "you flex it, I'll weld it" to get it perfect. But we nailed it. It's dead on any way I can measure.

[rpcraft]

yeah I am trying to figure out if I should spend the money on the kits or the metal. I'm kind of wanting to do something they don't exactly have on their site, sort of a pre-runner style, and I already have one of the old warn center pieces for the front that has the winch plate incorporated into it. I was thinking something like this for the back..




And for the front I liked the rest to be in tube style to sort of match the rear... The only caveat is I want to make the pieces of tube attached to a plate that will bolt to the center piece and frame rails, so if I hit something I can take that piece off and rebuild it without having to rebuild the whole front bumper, if that makes any sense. I got the idea from the original Warn bumper. They came in 5 pieces. The big middle piece was plate steel and super strong, then the end pieces were stamped steel. Pretty tough, but the bottom was a shell and the top piece attached to it to add strength and stiffness. I am sure a deer or something took at one of them and who knows want bent the other.

I was thinking of adding a light bar for LED's as an outrigger like pictured below.



Here is the center piece of the warn bumper. I'm just test fitting it here to figure out what to reinforce and which holes to drill for mounting.

[6]

Those pictures are pretty close to what the Embark bumpers look like for the old blazers.

I had thought about building my own from scratch, after doing these kits I'm VERY happy I didn't.

1.st there was no way in hell I was going to make any of those bends in plate that thick.

2. No way was j going to bend the pipe that clean and even.

3. No way was I making cuts that straight and clean in steel that thick.

4. It was hard enough getting it dead balls even and square when all the pieces are dead balls even and square. If it where all pieces I made....

5. Time. I was able to do this in a manageable amount of time. Two guys one day, another afternoon, then paint and finish work on the front. it was a lot of time. basically a week.. I still need to get/mount the winch, wire the winch, wire my lights, make mounts for the KC's up top and the squares down below.

It was a big project, but not so big it will never be finished. The amount of time it would have taken me to design a bumper, order the steel, make all the parts, figure everything out and then build what I designed (which never ever is as simple as just weld it up.) would have been more time than I would have had to invest..

I'm now starting to assemble the rear. Once this is done I'll be going on a good amount of time invested. Doing it myself multiply that by 10. I'd never have actually finished it with any level of quality.

[frinesi2]

That looks pretty good. Aggressive without being over-styled. And now you have room for some big dumb rectangular LEDs on either side.

[6]

That looks pretty good. Aggressive without being over-styled. And now you have room for some big dumb rectangular LEDs on either side.

Thanks, it's not to everyones taste but for what this truck does for a living, it will work well

Although there is room, light bars are not my jam. They are sending me one set of the small square lights they have in their bumpers on the site.. but more importantly Dan bought me a set of round KC's for my birthday. I plan on using those. But on top of the bumper not in.

I'm sure light bars give more light or better light, or more better light per/$ or whatever. But I'm 40. My first truck had KC's on the front. And I just like them.

So no light bars for me. No bumpers I could throw a BBQ on, no 22" wheels with fake mud tires, no stacks off my gas engine (or diesel for that matter)...

Old'ish school son.


Just got their Precision kit sent here. Building that for my step dads f1fiddy next.

[frinesi2]

Thanks, it's not to everyones taste but for what this truck does for a living, it will work well

Although there is room, light bars are not my jam. They are sending me one set of the small square lights they have in their bumpers on the site.. but more importantly Dan bought me a set of round KC's for my birthday. I plan on using those. But on top of the bumper not in.

I'm sure light bars give more light or better light, or more better light per/$ or whatever. But I'm 40. My first truck had KC's on the front. And I just like them.

So no light bars for me. No bumpers I could throw a BBQ on, no 22" wheels with fake mud tires, no stacks off my gas engine (or diesel for that matter)...

Old'ish school son.


Just got their Precision kit sent here. Building that for my step dads f1fiddy next.

That's what I meant - fog lights in the bumper, basically. To fill up the openings on either side of the winch box.

By the way - you should totally put in a rear winch too.

[6]

That's what I meant - fog lights in the bumper, basically. To fill up the openings on either side of the winch box.

By the way - you should totally put in a rear winch too.

Ahh, yes.. yes. I think that is going to be cool.

Getting to the point where there is a LOT of wiring to do/hide up front here now.

The front "fog" lights, the front KC lights, the winch power and control wires, then the three big ones that are already there but need securing, the plow lights, the plow power, and the plow control all are up there too.

Not sure I can even get all this off the batt... The batt is already running two large amps, plow power and I forget what else.. I may need a second battery and a power block somewhere??...??

By the way - you should totally put in a rear winch too.

That's a good bit of extra money and extra time. I'm not sure where you would even put it besides a hitch Mount, and then I'm trucking it around everywhere with me.

Unless you mounted it in the bed, then you could use it to load things into the bed, but it would take up bed space..

Probably not. Not unless there was an easy way to swap one from front to rear in the field.

[6]

I didn't document the rear as well. This one probably has 6-8 hours in it. It's welded from the inside, I still have to do the out.

It's been so much fun. I've used about 500lbs of gas and a good bit (3/4 at least and I'm not done yet) of an 11 lb spool of .035.

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[6]

Welded every damn seem on this one.

What a project.
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I want to paint this differently than I did the front... But I also need it on asap...

[6]

I sprayed this frame paint today instead of brushing it on....

It's better... Not great, but good for a farm truck bumper.

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word to the wise.. if you are consistently your own worst enemy and you paint in enclosed spaces with no respiratory protection, don't do that with frame "paint" I don't know what's in it, but I feel like coughing (weird word) so hard I could puke.... Use something with this stuff... Covid bandana costume, I don't care, but somthing.. this shit is rugged.

Need this bumper on tomorrow so I can use the truck to get to Speedway Ice Racing practice tomorrow night... (Assuming tomorrow I can breath again and I don't die tonight from lack of oxygen due to frame paint lung syndrome)

Crunch time yo.

But the rear bumper is dope.

I wish I could go back and do the front again, I learned things with the back I would like to have done up front, but that isn't the way it works.