Defiantly, I feel like most bumpers look better with some sort of hoop.

 

Bumper looks super nice.

 

Thanks! I got it all painted yesterday and hope to have it mounted tonight. I'll get some pictures posted of it installed.

 

Finally got the front bumper mounted and the Warn M8000s stuffed in there. I think it turned out just about as I had it pictured in my head so I am happy.

I wanted the winch tucked in as tight as possible and it ended up just touching the front cross member. Closer than I planned but it fits. I could probably loosen the bolts and slide it out a hair if needed. The controller and contacter are mounted up by the air box. You can see the plug in front of the box mounted to the back of the grill body.

Hooked to a tree and drug the parking brake to get the rope tight. My neighbor looked at me funny when he pulled in and saw me winching the Jeep out of the garage and up the driveway but he should be used that kind of stuff around here by now.

Oh, the vacuum bulb I relocated under the hood. The lines were so brittle when I tried to pull them apart it shattered. I had some hard plastic line here (sprinkler line maybe?) so I looped it back and mounted to some of the A/C parts. Seemed to run OK like that so hopefully it will work. The horns I was able to flip to the back side of the bracket and rotate up in behind the fender brace so they are out of the way and out of site.

 

Nice! Love the bumper. Looks super nice and clean. Had the same happen to me with the hose on the vacuum bulb. Had some other line that was a little more flexible and used that to relocate it. Seems to be working fine still too.

 

Thank you!

Yeah, I had one moment where the idle kicked up and stayed up like it had a vacuum leak but I shut it off, checked it over, fired it back up and couldn't get it to do it again so hopefully that was just a glitch. I revved it by hand under the hood and it went back down every time so fingers crossed.

 

Looks really good. Like that you have the d rings up top instead of low as well. The curves show the quality as well.

 

Thanks man. I used to drive my shackles into a lot of rocks on the TJ so I knew I wanted to get them up higher on this one. Of course the bumper is a lot higher too so that should help.

 

Looks awesome. I'm jealous of the bumper. I tried to make me a rear bumper yesterday. What a fail that was compared to yours

 

Thank you. I've been welding and building parts off and on for almost 20 years. Just got serious about in the last few though. It takes time to get good at it. Just make sure your welds are strong and have good penetration. The rest can be made to look better with a grinder. Practice, practice, practice.

 

Finally got out to do some more serious trails and test this thing out a bit. Went to Wheelin' For Hope at Oak Ridge Estates in VA. I was trail guiding and I don't usually do much of the obstacles while guiding so I'm not the one broken and holding up the group but what it did do was great.

Everything seems to be working well although I still can't get used to wheeling an automatic. I have way too many years of working the clutch under my belt. I need to get the 1-2 lock switch that my buddy has so I can force it to stay in the gear I want instead of shifting on me right when I don't want it too. And it's starting to whine on the highway so I'm afraid it may have already started to go bad on me. Only seems to do it in second and I don't know if its the tranny or the 4-1 in the t-case. Going to do some more serious rocks at Big Dogs next weekend so I'll get a better idea.

I finally got my Hyline Offroad hood louvers installed and that made a big difference not only with vapor locking the motor but also not cooking my feet inside the cab like it used too.

Didn't get many pictures since I was driving and first in line.

 

That face is great in the first picture lol. Does your Jeep have 1,3? I tend to keep mine in Drive for the most part but go into 3 here and there.

 

I was trying a new line and that's the first time up that with the longer wheel based rig. I think that look on my face was a bit of determination with reservation.

I have 1,2 - 3 & D. The 1,2 in the AW4 is electronic and you can't tell it which one you want to be in. Going down hill if I drop it in 1,2 with the 4:1 t case it crawls and won't shift to 2. If I drop it in 3 it will hold 2 for a little bit but then it takes off like a shot in 3 with no engine brake so I have to ride the brakes. There's no 2 on demand. Sometimes when I want to crawl up something it jumps to 2 on me when I don't want it too. The switch I was talking about actually forces it to stay in 1 or 2.

 

Do you sell those bumpers? I am mainly interested in the front one.

 

Sorry I didn't answer this sooner. I've been off the grid for a few days beating on the rig.

We aren't currently selling any of the custom parts. They are a work in progress and I'm giving them the torture test for a while to work out any flaws in the design. They may be in production at some point though.