Rear Bumper Ideas ?

After building a front bumper that turned out fairly well I am going to tackle the rear. I am going to start with 5" c channel. I will attach the license plate in the center and the receiver hitch under the license plate. What I am wondering about is the frame for the spare tire mount. I don't have a tailgate so it doesn't have to swing out. I would place it to the right and leave a space for the gas can to the left. What size material works best ? Possibly square tubing 1x2.

 

I dunno much but this has always interested me... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P9og6nZ1WrE

 

I made mine out of 1 1/4" pipe since I had some laying around. Attached to the jeep with 2" square tubing. I also made it swing type for easy access to jack and shovel.

 

I really liked that video. I built a bumper for my samurai that I thought was really neat. It held a spare tire, gas tank, shovel, ax, and handi man. All of it swung away from the back allowing access to the back end. It was quite heavy however and you could tell it was there when climbing hills. I had the pivot point machined for it and that was expensive. I like the trailer hub idea better.

 

Its missing the handi man it that pic. This one you can kinda see the handi man in place.

 

After tearing off my back bumper a long time ago while winching, I had to come up with something cheap and easy to built because I did not have a welding machine at the time. I bought a piece of 4" x 4" x 3/8" plain angle iron and just bolted it up to the frame horns.



I mounted my wagon jack by drilling 2 holes in the bottom and sticking 2 bolts up through the bottom and then putting some rubber on top of the angle iron to stop rattling noise. The bolts are weld on to stay in place.



I drilled some holes in the outer ends so when jacking with the wagon jack, I could put a couple bolts in the angle iron to keep the jack from sliding off when jacking at a angle.



using the angle iron allowed me to mount my lic. plate and a extra backup light and they were protected from damage.



When I rebuilt my jeep a couple of years ago, I changed the hitch to a receiver hitch with a couple of hooks on each side for safety chains. When I need a hook on the back to chain up to a tree or something, I put a clevis holder in the receiver.



for mounting the top of my wagon jack, I ran a bolt from the inside and bolted everything to it with rubber spacer to stop rattle. Note in my part of the world, we do not have to worry about thief's, so i just hold everything on with wing nuts. I used plastic because they do not vibrate lose and always stay tight.



With the angle iron like it is, it gives me a step to step on to reach in the back of the jeep. You can even see where I painted anti-slip material on each end to step on. I have used this setup for over 30 years and love it. It is just about indestructible and I have come off rocks, etc. and landed on it and it has no effect on anything. If you had a tail gate, it is sturdy enough to hold a swing away spare tire holder, or it could take the weight of spare gas cans, etc. with no problem. I will admit it is kind of heavy. It's also very very easy to make. The way I did it, it makes a great platform for doing a lot of other things if a guy wanted to, but does not stick out a lot to hang up on.

 

Heres a link to the bumper I built for my '83 CJ5 http://www.earlycj5.com/forums/showthread.php?t=50504 I used 1/2" x 2" flat stock that passes through the channle and bolts to the frame then sandwiched on another 1/2" x 2" stub so on the back I have 1" x 2" shackle mounts. I modified a Bronco II tire carrier so it holds2 5 gallon cans, a chainsaw, the spare and the hi-lift which gets locked down securing the gerry cans. I hung it off a 2" x 2" x 1/4" wall piece of tubing welded to a piece of 4" channle. I built this set-up before I had my hardtop and unfortunatly the tire carrier wouldn't allow the rear hatch to open so I am building a new one this spring.

 

Great Ideas, I really like the simplicity of the angle iron bumper but I think I will do something similar to the Samuari bumper with the flush mount lights. I mounted the jack on the front but I do need a spare tire mount and gas can mount.