Anti-Bambi Bumper

Well long story short I got one.....not with my AR but with the runner.

Not bad for smoking a deer at 65 or so. Didn't bother to hit the brakes because the damn thing lept into the road right in front of me.

Now for the Anti-Bambi device. I'm not doing a full on bumper because I have a lightweight truck and I'd like to keep it that way. All I need to do is keep another deer from doing serious damage to the front end (radiator, condenser, front clip etc). Since the runner sits higher I figure a narrow bull bar that's pretty stout will work better than a heavy plate bumper.

Still waiting on a few parts but I should have her running this weekend. The skids did their job which is great. No oil damage, just coolant and the refrigerant. https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/201...c39a549e95.jpghttps://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/201...3a5ff26720.jpghttps://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/201...822a59b672.jpg

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Very lucky! If you had it it on one of the sides it would be very bad, but dead center like that and it did well. Glad you are OK.

Full plates don't weight that much more over all the stock stuff you removed and even less weight if you go aluminum
My full plate saved one of my $600 projector retrofitted headlights from a massive bird possibly an owl. Had a huge wing span. It was dark on a country road. Bird nailed my headlight hoops and lannched it over my truck.

You got lucky hitting it square on. Glad to hear you and the 4Runner are okay, especially for hitting something at 65 mph. I've got a buddy that just hit a deer on the way to work. All said and done he said it was a $3400 repair covered by insurance. Bumper, paint and either an AC line or tweaking of one.

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Originally Posted by 4x4mike

You got lucky hitting it square on. Glad to hear you and the 4Runner are okay, especially for hitting something at 65 mph. I've got a buddy that just hit a deer on the way to work. All said and done he said it was a $3400 repair covered by insurance. Bumper, paint and either an AC line or tweaking of one.

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Yes! I knew they would total the 98 and I'd be stuck trying to find a decent michigan frame (which there isn't lol) and basically sol. All said and done I'm up to possibly 500. I'm not sure if my fan clutch is toast but I filled the radiator and a/c today. Gotta dump the block coolant to complete the flush but that can wait till tomorrow.

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Originally Posted by toyotech

Full plates don't weight that much more over all the stock stuff you removed and even less weight if you go aluminum
My full plate saved one of my $600 projector retrofitted headlights from a massive bird possibly an owl. Had a huge wing span. It was dark on a country road. Bird nailed my headlight hoops and lannched it over my truck.

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I haven't ruled a full plate out but I am not sure if I can build such a sturdy wing. The center is easy. I'm sticking with boxed 3/16 for the main two supports, 3/16 and 1/8 for some crush zones I've designed in, and then if I do the wings it would also be a combo of 3/16 and 1/8th.

Solidworks is underway. I have the crush zones and central supports drawn up. I'll have to mess around with cardboard for the plate stuff though. Any good sources? I've got one box my bumper came in but it's kinda flimsy. Everything is going to be laser cut for me so that should help.

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A tube bumper is lighter than a plate bumper. The downside is it doesn't look as good a a plate bumper.

Or even. Hybrid. Plate center and tube wings

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Originally Posted by toyotech

Or even. Hybrid. Plate center and tube wings

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This is what I was thinking. But as far as I know bent tube is stronger than cut and welded tube correct? I would have to find a source for the tube bender. There's some fabricators around though.

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It is but only because there are no sharp corners at the welds to create stress risers. However, for what we do and since we always overbuild things, it really doesn't matter. The main reason to bend tube is because it looks more professional. Nothing screams backyard amateur louder than cut and weld bends (and even worse, square tube).

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Originally Posted by Robinhood4x4

It is but only because there are no sharp corners at the welds to create stress risers. However, for what we do and since we always overbuild things, it really doesn't matter. The main reason to bend tube is because it looks more professional. Nothing screams backyard amateur louder than cut and weld bends (and even worse, square tube).

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Well I am planning on smoking another bambi, not because I want to, but because michigan. Since I'm building for running something over at speed that is around 125 or so then I think I'm going to poke around the area and see if there's someone who can help me with the bends instead of trying the hand bend method again.

Square tube worked out very well for my roof rack though. Very easy to build with.

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Aren't there shops that sell put together kits? I thought there was one out of Reno that built Toyota bumpers. They do the cutting and bending and you do the welding. May be something to look into. IIRC correctly there were a few nice hybrid bumpers out there as well.

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Originally Posted by 4x4mike

Aren't there shops that sell put together kits? I thought there was one out of Reno that built Toyota bumpers. They do the cutting and bending and you do the welding. May be something to look into. IIRC correctly there were a few nice hybrid bumpers out there as well.

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I was looking for them and I could only find two. Neither were hybrids. I would be very interested in a hybrid that I could just weld up. The savings for the shipping would be nice.

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Maybe talk to Roy at Savage Off Road.

That's my point, the things we make are so beefy, that a weld stress riser isn't going to make much of a difference when you're talking about hitting something at 55 mph. It's either going to bend or it's not and it's not going to matter whether it's a welded joint or a bent joint.

But...I do agree that you should go the "bent" route.

If I can make the measurements and get a reasonable rate for bending a couple of tubes plus some laser table work I will just use my own design.

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Originally Posted by Kryptoroxx

...plus some laser table work I will just use my own design.

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Or water jet cutting or cnc plasma.

All of those are acceptable as well. I will be looking for the best rate. Thickest metal in my design is 3/16" so plasma will probably be the most economical but different companies have different rates.

Not sure how bending is priced. I think all of my tube is 1.5"

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Ok progress is really slow when I have to keep teaching myself SolidWorks nearly from scratch again and again but I think I have a component designed fairly well. I wanted to have a crush insert on the bumper just because I think it's worth it honestly. Here's what I'm thinking as far as design for the crush point.

Attachment 337Attachment 338

The frame plates are 1/4" with the upper and lower lengths at 3/16". the brace in the middle is 1/8". I figure that the boxed design will create enough strength to keep flexing to a minimum but soft enough to flex before bending the frame?

The other idea that I had was to cut the frame back to just before the wimpy brace (I am planning on beefing that up with a .120 square tube) and then adding a frame tie of 3/16" (like what FROR does for the front end of the old pickups) so that would change the design just a little but anyway. Some progress and questions.

If I can't even get to finish the design before the group buy goes on with the coastal offroad bumper I am tossing in for that. The price will likely be too good to pass up.

Are you saying you're going to cut off the factory crush zone in the frame rails? If not, then you don't need a new crush zone since it'll still be there. If you are then...

The problem is we don't know when the factory crush zone is supposed to activate in an accident so it would be a crap shoot to design our own crush zone and think it would activate at the same impact force as the factory crush zone. Ideally, you would have to reverse engineer the toyota design by modeling it in Finite Element Analysis and then do some actual testing to verify the model. I work with Stress Analysts and I do the actual testing and even I would have a hard time designing such a thing.

I assume you're going to design it for a winch? You would have to do the stress calculations to make sure that your new crush zone is strong enough to withstand a worst case scenario of a sideways winch pull, but weak enough to crush in an accident.

What I'm trying to say is that designing a crush zone is not a trivial thing and I think you should just build the bumper and not worry about it. It'll be fine.

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Originally Posted by Robinhood4x4

Are you saying you're going to cut off the factory crush zone in the frame rails? If not, then you don't need a new crush zone since it'll still be there. If you are then...

The problem is we don't know when the factory crush zone is supposed to activate in an accident so it would be a crap shoot to design our own crush zone and think it would activate at the same impact force as the factory crush zone. Ideally, you would have to reverse engineer the toyota design by modeling it in Finite Element Analysis and then do some actual testing to verify the model. I work with Stress Analysts and I do the actual testing and even I would have a hard time designing such a thing.

I assume you're going to design it for a winch? You would have to do the stress calculations to make sure that your new crush zone is strong enough to withstand a worst case scenario of a sideways winch pull, but weak enough to crush in an accident.

What I'm trying to say is that designing a crush zone is not a trivial thing and I think you should just build the bumper and not worry about it. It'll be fine.

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No idea where the factory crush is on the front end and I wasn't aware there was one honestly. All I have on the front of my frame is the two nubs after the crossbar. The crossbar is bent too so I was going to take that out and replace it as well.





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Yikes, I don't either. I'd follow Robinhood's advice and steal from the rich. I mean, just design something to bolt on. Like he said, it would take a lot of work to design crush zones and in the end they may not work properly.

Picked up my 96's and my hubby's 99's front bumpers the other day. Big difference in the fatlip's weight, a lot more to it than the sad little shell mine is.

Yeah when I started piecing together ideas I remembered how easily the crossbeam in the front was bent so I figured that adding a little something might help. But when you hit something that force has to go somewhere so that's why I thought it might be possible to design a crush area so that the force isn't transferred to a different part of the frame.

Robinhood is right though now that I think about it with all of the testing. I just figured that it might be something worth a shot. I hope to have some kind frame tie designed in though because that crossbeam will fold the next time it's hit.

Pause on this item, our offer on a house was just accepted. Doesn't have a garage sadly but it does have space for one in the future.

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Well it finally happened. I ended up getting a new job and along with it came a long commute through to brainless bambi zombie horde territory. I installed it about a month ago but it has served me well. I've had close calls as well but luckily the strength has not been put to the test.

The ride feels improved with the addition of weight and as far as I can tell it still gets decent mpg although the gas gauge is starting to act funny. Full is now 3/4 lol. Not sure if theres an easy fix for that or not. https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/201...03a659b7ed.jpghttps://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/201...7098a95763.jpghttps://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/201...e96af498d1.jpghttps://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/201...2008c1dad6.jpghttps://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/201...5316ef516e.jpg

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Nice work!

Nice work. You put the hoops on right?

Oh yeah. They welded up nice and easy. I honestly though it would be hard to get everything uniform but it only took about 20 minutes of fitting, marking, and cutting to get everything right. https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/201...bddbae59f8.jpg

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