Greg Davis said:
Glad everything worked out for you John. What would you have done differently on the bumper, or were you referring to your project as a whole?
Greg
1) I would have spent the extra money to have it shipped with the fender sliders pre-welded. I had to call in a favor from a friend to weld them, now I owe him big time.
2) I would have taken a closer look before cutting the fenders, I think I could have had a fit with less gap (remember, the truck was rear-ended and the right rear frame member had to be 'adjusted' at a frame alignment shop, so all bets are off on how it was done.)
3) Now that I think about it, forget #2, I'm perfectly OK with it, it's not a show car afterall.
4) I should have taken the extra step to fabricate spacer bars for the fit of the bumper to the bumper brackets, 1/8" would have been fine - again, probably an issue with the way it came out from the frame alignment shop. Although I took a hammer to the corners of the metal strip that runs across the back of the D2, the bumper rests on that strip most of the way across (which I didn't notice till final fitment), so there is a slight gap between one of the bumper mounts and the bumper - but I'm not taking it off again for a little thing like that. Again, this could have been easily fixed by either bending the full length of the the stip down, or fabricating spacers.
5) In my case, I had enough gap below the bumper to accomodate the little tabs on the quarter panel trim pieces, so I could have cut the fenders below the plastic screw insert (and provided a little more stability for those flimsy trim pieces) rather than cutting above it and losing it.
Other comments: Semi-gloss black Rust-Oleum looks good - I used 1 ea. 15oz. can of primer and 2 ea. 15 oz. cans of paint with a little paint left over for touchup.
The hitch pin wouldn't fit though the hitch hole, I had to ream it out with a 5/8 bit, nearly breaking my wrist when the bit caught, and dinged the bumper paint a little too. I swore at you once. Oh well.
Fender well / slider support flaps - The middle bolt of the three rests exaclty on the seam on both sides, so could not be used. Two bolts on each side seemed like plenty good enough though.
Although only I (or anyone reading this) would notice, the bow in the bumper measures just over 1/4", so either too much welding heat or not enough jig support was used in fabrication. I had to hog out a lot of metal from the bumper mount holes, requireing putting on / taking off the bumper 4 times before I could get all 4 bolts started. But then, I'm not the handiest body guy around.
I swore at you twice while trying to remove the damned adhesive from the clear tape used to wrap the shipping label on - damn, that was a lot of tape - and noticed after priming that I missed a big piece of clear tape with the wire brush when prepping.
The bumper could have been fabricated 1/4" longer - the plastic trim pieces extend out about an eighth of an inch beyond the sides of the bumper on either side, so they are maybe a little vulnerable.
Really, though, it all turned out well. I'm very happy with your product, and would recommend it to anyone looking for a svelt rear bumper for their D2. And, I appreciate the work spent in designing and fabricating it.
John F
LV, NV
