How To - Home Made Tube/Push Bumper

Okay, I'm no metal master like Bonehead or some others. But I thought I would post this up to generate a thread and give people some pics to look at. Since I am in the process of giving my coupe more of a dry lakes racer look, I thought I would start at the rear and make a tube style push bumper. I started with this because it was free. I made it out of scraps. In fact, all the over all dimensions were determined by the size of the scraps I had laying around. I hope this isn't lame.

I'll show the mostly finished bumber first, the go over the details. I still need to add brackets and paint or plate it. I have not decided which way to go yet.

I need an idea on what to do with the rear bumper on my truck. Keep posting those pics....

I had a pice of 2" OD tubing approx. 40' long in the corner, so I started with it. First, I decided to make some holes in it just to make it interesting. So I marked a centerline the length of the tube and tack welded short pieces of flat bar to each end to keep the tube from rolling during the drilling process. The flat bar gets removed later.



Next, I needed to determine the size of the holes and the spacing. I had some 1" OD tubing laying aroud so that was it. Note that the 1" tubing had an 1/8" wall thickness, making the actual finished hole 3/4" diameter. These probably would have looked better larger but I used what I had. I marked the hole centerlines, making sure not to place a hole in the center where the push bar would be. I actually measured to center length of the 40" tubing and worked toward each end when marking.

Lame? Hardly, that is a way cool design and the metal work looks to be top notch! So it looks like pipe with short chunks of pipe welded in and ground off. But it has the appearance of solid round stock with holes drilled. Very good job.

Then center punch your marks and fire up the drill press. As previously stated I used a 1" holesaw here with plenty of oil.



After I drilled 18 holes in the bumper, I cut 18 pieces of my 1" OD tubing 2" in length to match the OD of the bumper. I also fishmouthed the ends to match the round contour. In addition to that, I beveled the outside of the ends where they will be welded because the entire weld will be ground smooth. This will give the weld a place to fill.

Then place all the short pieces that were cut into the holes you drilled and weld them up. A TIG welder would have saved some grinding time but I don't have one so MIG it is. It looks something like this after welding. I have one of the hole patterns branded into the palm of my hand right now but I don't think that needs any further explanation.



I then ground the welds smooth (that was fun) and made some end caps. Welded and ground smooth in the same manner.

Now for the push part. I had a piece of 1/4" X 12" X 4" plate on the shelf so this determined the size of the push bar. Plus it just looked right to me.



I marked out some holes. Starting with a 2" hole near the edge that slides over the bumper to be welded in place. The other holes I just laid out and drilled to add some texture. I also trimmed the edges to form a triangular shape. This part is all personal preference and I just laid out something fairly simple that suited my taste. You could even use a bumperette from a 40's era car in place of a home made piece. I ended up with this.....

Although there is no photo documentation of it. I cut a pice of 3/4" OD tubing to 13" in length. This is to be the the actual push bar and gets welded to the edge of the above shown triangular bracket. I filled and rounded the ends of the push bar for a more finished look. Here are the pieces laid out on the floor prior to assembly.



I then slid the triangular bracket onto the marked center of the bumper and tacked it into position. Note - Make sure that the holes in the bumper are facing the desired direction when completing this step. I then centered the 13" push bar onto the triangular bracket and tack welded it. This is what you get.



This is the extent of my progress to date. It will probably be next weekend before I make any further progress. I'll post the finished product when I'm done.

Wow, a lot of nice, hard work there. It really takes time to do all those tubes through there, but is the right way to do them. Very very nice.

Thanks, and keep the report going please.

Don

That is a work of art.

really cool thread! can a mod move this to the tech section? wouldn't want it to get lost in the hustle and bustle.

Nice!
I think I’ll use the tube with holes idea for a front spreader bar.

Jeff

One of the best aspects of this thread is that we can see from the pictures he is doing this with commonly available tools and metal. No fancy cad machines or Bridgeports, just a drill press and other normal tools.

It is amazing what a nice shape simple regular steel pieces can take on when cut, ground, and drilled with some holes. These are the kinds of pieces true rodders love to see on a car at a show or cruise. It shows the guy used his own brain and lots of hard work to make something really different and neat.

Very good job and thread.


Don

Very nice...

Great looking piece you are building.
Keep the pictures and progress reports coming.

The inserting tubes and welding / grinding is of interest to me as I may put some holes in my radius rods
and this is the way to do it without jeopardizing the strength and integrity of the rods.
Don, Satan and a few others may remember the KB thread on this.
Thanks for sharing.....'22

that looks really nice , how did you mount it to the car ?

24dodge said:

that looks really nice , how did you mount it to the car ?

Click to expand...

I'm not done with it yet 24. I still have to make the brackets. I got side tracked making door panels and seat frames and working on my dad's car and have not finished the bumper. I'll post an update pretty soon. It's going to be mounted to the ends of the bobbed frame horns through some exsisting holes there. I just have to fab up some brackets and weld them to the bumper.