The die is cast: DIY weld rear bumper and tire carrier (True North Fabricatiions)

[Bob98SR5]

Sean,

My god, that looks like a torture device! Seriously, which part of the wood did you use to jack up the body?


So in between the neighborhood rug rats coming for candy (nobody says "trick or treat" anymore---entitled shits except my neighbor's kids), I got a little work done. I removed the nuts from all body mounts except the ones near the engine, the side bumper flares, the stone guards, and the top plastic bumper piece. I didn't remove the bumper just yet because I wanted to see if I could remove the rear body mount without removing the bumper. i don't think it's gonna be possible because there's very little hand space to remove those 14mm M8 bolts that sit on the bump stop plate (x2 bolts). So I called it a night and the plan for tomorrow is to do remove the rear bumper (only 4 bolts holding it on right now) and then try jacking up from the side with my Type R body seam body lift device. AS you can see, I channeled it w/ my table saw so the wood will fit nicely (and it does) over the seam. I did give it a dry run and I believe I'll need to screw in another 2x4 beneath it---maybe a 3rd. We'll see. It may lower the 10 rwhp though by about 2.4. Just guessing

With all that removed, I only makes sense to test fit the bumper. I may have to postpone the tire install to next week, but we'll see.

On another crappy note, my damn Napa (or the hoses) power steering pump has a slow leak somewhere. This is driving me CRAZY.

[Seanz0rz]

My piece was about 18" long, I think I wedged it between the frame and outer pinch weld so it was more or less captive.

Try some ATP205 in the power steering, might be a shrinking seal or something. Worked for my rack seals.

Moving the mill was sketchy and it only almost fell face first once. It worked well.

[Bob98SR5]

Sean,

Thanks for the recommendation. I'll give it a go re: ATP205. I'll see if I can find the source of the leak first, tighten up all the hoses, and/or replace the non-pressure hose coming off the P/S pump.

[Bob98SR5]

Gents a question for you all:

I believe I can mount the carrier on the left driver's side too just by flipping and welding the main mount. I would think the biggest advantage to having the tire carrier on the driver's side is that the tire would be behind my head. The biggest con though would be that if I opened it up while parked along the curb with traffic on the left side, it presents a risk to the tire carrier and inattentive motorists who might bash into it. But really from MY safety standpoint, having the tire behind on the driver's side would allow me to have a full view of the right passenger side.

Thoughts?

[4x4mike]

I would think behind your head would be best. I drive everyday with my bike on my rear rack and while it's small and only the seat post in the way, it's right in the middle and distracting. Perhaps estimate the size and placement of the tire and use a piece of cardboard to block that portion of the window and take a look through the mirror.

It's kind of a tough one and a trade off for having a rear mount carrier.

[Bob98SR5]

Mike,

Yeah I'm gonna have to find some pics online to see how far this swings out. That will definitely be the deciding factor. As you can see from this diagram, there's only two lock outs. Some of the other designs I've seen have multiple.

[Bob98SR5]

...have my fingers!

Ok so if you thought the link to Timmy the Toolman's method of jacking up the rear end was dicey, let me describe the things that I used in my garage to make my install of Sonoran Steel's rear body mount happen:

a) Hydraulic jack (of course)
b) a board
c) 2 x 45lb Rogue Fitness rubber plates
d) 15lb solid core dumbell
e) 2x4 cut perfectly square

I am NOT going to describe what I did to make this work. Use your imagination!

Now there's a reason why I didn't attach the pic of it either: because what I did was downright crazy stupid and I don't want some younger dude with less experience (errr more common sense) than me to do what I did. Jacking up by the middle of the body didn't work because my wood blocks weren't tall enough and I didn't want to cut them in the middle of the evening (I started at 645PM). Type R lifting block = Fail.

So long story short, using the above combination of Macguyver garage gym assets, I managed jack up the rear from the rear by the two mounts on either side of the locking latch, which allowed some room to undo the 14mm bolts on both sides of each body mount with the longest wrenches that I had. Pro tip: put a block in between the body and the top of the frame just in case things go south. I could easily see fingers being lost. Anyways another pro tip: with the side bumper pieces off, you have plenty of room to work from the back side where there's a huge pocket of hand space to work from, which is infinitely safer. So work from behind the mounts.

The mounts FYI are one piece, so you have to get the body mount up fairly high to lift the mount out of the pocket. Make sure you remove the bolt first though from inside the rear of the cabin.

Installing it was a scary proposition because I was watching my lift contraption while installing the new SS parts. First thing is to push the sleeve from the top so that it's flush w/ the top. Place the diamond shape plate on the bottom and through the sleeve. Then drop it in to the mount hole. Place one of the provided washers on top of the rubber mount. Then drop the factory OEM bolt and make sure the two bolt taps (wings) are in the slots so that they lock when you wrench on the bottom nut. After dropping the bolt down, secure the two 14mm bolts from the top and through the diamond plate. I would do what Timmy did and lift up the rubber piece and secure the 14mm bolts down so that the mount sits on top of them. I secured the bolts about 3/4ths of the way.

BE CAREFUL AND WATCH YOUR LIFTING apparatus while doing this. And work from the back side!

Finally put the 2nd rubber piece on from the bottom, followed by a washer. Finally wrench on the 14mm nut. Done. Lift up the other side and repeat.

Sorry, no pics of the body mounts or install. But frankly because it's not as exciting as...

[Bob98SR5]

Well thank goodness: all those expensive Rogue Fitness bumper plates and other gym equipment helped save the day (and my back)!

So after removing the bumper, I had access to the two frame rails with nothing in the way, which allowed me to properly measure the lowest point of the frame rail. That was now 22.75" with the OME 906 coils. So I looked around the garage and lo and behold my gym bench was the perfect solution to get me most of the way there. The bench height is about 17" high and then I used the 45lb rubber bumper plates again which got me within about 1.5 - 2.0" inches. So I placed the bumper on the plates that were on top of the bench and slid it towards the back of the 4runner.

One of the things I forgot to do was to unhook the 3 holed rubber bushing that holds the exhaust pipe and the two metal holders. After sliding that on, you have to push the exhaust pipe out of the way. Unfortunately one thing that I learned after I got the bumper down pretty close to what I'd like it to be so I'll mention it now: after clearing the pipe out of the way, you need to get the rubber back in to place again before tightening down the bumper. Else the back center support is going to get in the way.

It took some finagling before I got the holes and bumper lined up. The bolts that come with the TNF kit do NOT fit my 98's holes at all. Or at least mine didn't. So I reused the 4 bolts from the old bumper and bolted the bumper in. And the best part? My welding was pretty spot on! I'd say its not 100% perfect, but about 98% there . The top of the side flares to the bottom of the body is about ½" or slightly more. But I think that's because I'm only using the 4 stock bolts. In the early steps of the fab work, they have you spot weld 4 nuts onto 4 small plates. These are used to put down the rails and then to use their bolts to bolt them in. The CBI kit as seen on TTTM's video shows that CBI tack welded a little thin piece of rod to their nut tabs so install would be easier. I think I'm going to do that too. But for now, this is only a test fit to see if everything lined up and also because I am getting new Revo 3s tomorrow and I want them to put those tires on and align them with the bumper on. I will probably have them realign it once I get the tire carrier on as I think the added weight on the back and on one side will change the geometry and weight dispersion. Do you guys think that's necessary?

Like I've said before, I'm really impressed at how right this company got it. Kryptoroxx apparently knows the designer well and spoke well of his design and engineering skills. I see why Kryptoroxx spoke so highly of him now.

I have a lot of welding to finish this weekend and hopefully I can finish by Sunday night.

[Kryptoroxx]

I like it!

Sent from my SM-G965U using Tapatalk

[Bob98SR5]

Going to take my truck to the tire shop this morn, so I placed some more tack weld in key places just to make sure nothing falls off Took it for a ride to the donut shop as I didn't feel like cooking and the road isn't the best quality. With the SS rear bump stops, I definitely can tell it's more firm in the back which I guess is the whole point of installing them.

Here's a good morning shot of how it looks today. The spare tire is in the back cargo area as I'll need it taken off as I can tell the tire has aged with some cracks between the tread. One of my good rear tires will go on the spare and I'll keep the other good rear tire as a back up in case some punk slashes my mounted rear tire. You never know in the crime free SF bay area /sarcasm

Things that I'll have to figure out: 1) rear stone guard/mud flaps. I believe that's law here in CA and I think I can recall someone getting a fix it ticket for that. 2) Rear license plate holder. I think I'll fab something up or buy something to mount on the external rear tire. 3) Top bumper trim. As you can see in the pics (pics pending), there's a substantial and quite unattractive gap in between the bumper's top face and the body's vertical lift gate area. I'm kicking myself because I didn't save the pic of a guy who cut up his old stock bumper cover trim to fit the bottom part nicely and he did something in the back too to cover the vert part. Now this might not work out for me because he didn't have a rear tire carrier. Hopefully I find those pics again. 4) Re-mounting my rear view camera and re-routing my Air bag schrader valve