Project "Big Country" - Front Bumper Fab

[Bighorn]

Looks great! Wish I could work that fast!

[SC74]

Thanks everyone for the compliments!!! :beer:

For some reason I've got it all built up in my head that the day the tub gets set back on the chassis is a huge milestone achievement. Every time we work on it I keep saying "Now all we have to do is this, this, and this before it can go back on the chassis." I know it's going to have to go on and off several times for fitting issues, but man I just can't wait til that day upergrin:

I'm about to place a big order at Summit for all of my EFI fuel lines, AN fittings, pumps, filters, etc. so we can plumb the fuel lines before the body goes on the chassis. Oh yea, gotta get the brakes too cratchhe:

[SC74]

Time for an update!!!

The past couple weekends has been a lot of filling holes and grinding them smooth. I went ahead and welded the wheel wells on the bottom side of the angle iron that we put in along the inside bottom of the rear fender wells. It needed it, plus we were able to grind it down to give it a smooth radius lip there and clean it up a lot.

The first pic shows how we altered the rear support channel. The tire is still rear of the center of the wheel well and I need all the room I can get in the back of the well. The front will have plenty of room - in fact it may look weird with so much room up front. We had to get rid of any sharp edges that may rub the tires so we bought a little room and smoothed it out by modifying the channel.

The rest of the pics are the rock sliders - 2x4x.188 wall. We used a 3/4x3/4 square stock to make it even with the existing body molding. The lip from the door opening comes over it about 1/2 inch and should blend in well after some liner is on it. The front corner is dobbed to allow room for the front fender to bolt on.

[744x4]

now prime it before it rusts.He He

[SC74]

I know that this has already been discussed in a separate thread about DIY bedliners, but thought I would add it to the build thread to keep it alive.

Our first time doing this was Monday evening. We used Liner X-treme off of ebay. I had good recommendations of this stuff and it turned out really well. I ordered gray, but it's a very light gray color but it's just going to get dirty anyways, right? The kit comes with the gun, bedliner, reducer, activator, and rubber additive for texture. You can spray it with as little or as much rubber additive as you like for your texture preference. The original plan was to leave the bottom smooth so that it would clean easily, but we found out that it was not building up well to cover all of the imperfections I was hoping to hide. We added a little rubber to the mix and it built up really well to fill in the new floor pan seams and other imperfections.

Check out our "paint booth." Keith had the canopy already so I bought the enclosure kit and it worked out really well. It probably wasn't necessary for this (wasn't as messy as I anticipated), but will be for painting. Plus it'll come in handy for lots of other things.

We'll see how well the durability of it is. CoachBarnes off of ClassicBroncos.com recommended it to me and he has it on his trailer. After 2 years he says it looks great and he abuses the crap out of his trailer. If he says that (and he's a Baja guy), I believe it!

Here are some pics of the bottom of the tub all pretty now :biggthumpup:

[High Pressure]

That looks super! :xyxthumbs:

[SC74]

That looks super! :xyxthumbs:

Thanks! We got the inside of the tub done now also and I gotta get those pics up on here.

[broncomania]

lookin very good.

[SC74]

Here are some pics of the inside. It's got some thin spots since it was done in the dark - it's on of those things too that you've got to hit it from every angle to get it all covered.

I've got a box from Summit full of AN fittings, fuel hose, fuel pump, etc. ready to be plumbed on the frame before the body gets set up there.

[73Bronc]

Nice job man! :xyxthumbs: