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Home/ Registry/ Ford/ Bronco/ 1987–1991/ “Tronco”/ Rear skidplate & Bumper supermotors.net/registry/10180/30124

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Rear skidplate & Bumper

From 1991 Ford Bronco “Tronco” — documented by ChuckVA.

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1991 Ford Bronco - I got a good deal on unused 24"x32" 1/4" plates at scrap price, so they'll be used for a number of things on this project. Here two have be… 1991 Ford Bronco - Even with only about 50% weld penetration (a single 1/8" MIG bead), the plate still has no trouble holding JB up. We'll be adding at least… 1991 Ford Bronco - New bumper endplates cooling after being cut out of 1/2" plate with the torch. Lots of cleanup still required. These plates will cap off th… 1991 Ford Bronco - Putting a square peg through a round hole ... 1991 Ford Bronco - Close-up of metal hitch receiver and square tubing, with SUPERMOTORS text visible. 1991 Ford Bronco - JB drilling the end plates. 1991 Ford Bronco - Gussets tacked in place, one test bead run. 1991 Ford Bronco - Lots of spatter and not the best penetration, but the remainder of this piece is overengineered. I'm still learning to work with thicker se… 1991 Ford Bronco - Pretty good heat affected zones on the backside, but the tack in the foreground is ugly as hell. 1991 Ford Bronco - Backside cooling down after finish welding. 1991 Ford Bronco - Business end of the bumper. Welds around the receiver tube are three pass fillet, chain plate is filleted to bumper on both sides and to tu… 1991 Ford Bronco - I'd been fighting my welder the whole time, and like an idiot couldn't figure out why I was having trouble with it. Notice the complete lac… 1991 Ford Bronco - Time to make the final cut to length so we can mount the bumper between the endplates. Daddy's got a new toy. Sure, we had to modify the ba… 1991 Ford Bronco - Tacked in place and ready to be unbolted for final welding. Right now it's secured by half the endplate bolts and five tacks on either end.… 1991 Ford Bronco - Finish welds on the end plates. 1991 Ford Bronco - All done except the top plate and the reinforcement around the shackle points. Oh, and still need four more holes in the frame and the brac… 1991 Ford Bronco - With a little cleanup, these two rough ovals will become the reinforcement for the rear shackle points. 1991 Ford Bronco - A "little" cleanup. New toy makes short work of rough edges on a pair of plates that total 1" when clamped together. 1991 Ford Bronco - Plates are drilled, then beveled at the ends and tacked in place ... 1991 Ford Bronco - Followed by finish welds. Single pass 5/32" or so fillets are more than sufficient for the required strength ... 1991 Ford Bronco - ... which is good, since that's the maximum capacity of this welder in a single pass. More strength could be obtained by proper multiple pa… 1991 Ford Bronco - The infill at the end. I did screw up doing the bevel on the opposite end, and had to grind out about 1" worth of weld ... but that's actua… 1991 Ford Bronco - Two endplates, plus four tabs to help support the skidplate. Then we quit on the truck for the day so we could go pull down a tree with the… 1991 Ford Bronco - I was asked for calcs and an illustration explaining why I said the factory mounting holes in the frame were insufficient -- these are the… 1991 Ford Bronco - Illustration of the block shear failure area, and necessary dimensions. 1991 Ford Bronco - Illustration of the rotation failure dimensions. 1991 Ford Bronco - Design for a simple removable winch mount, much stronger than receiver mount and without the clearance issues. 1991 Ford Bronco - We had a discussion on T4W about doing big jobs with a little welder. Here's an illustrative series of a full penetration butt weld in 1/4"… 1991 Ford Bronco - Get the pieces lined up straight and clamped in place. Remember the typical MIG guidance about not having a gap larger than the diameter of… 1991 Ford Bronco - Then strip back the paint at the weld area, and clean. That filth on the paper towel was from one swipe with alcohol, one of my favorite cl… 1991 Ford Bronco - Tack it up ... 1991 Ford Bronco - Then connect the dots. In this shot, I've just finished the middle section, as you can see. I had to pause here to move my bars underneath… 1991 Ford Bronco - If you want decent penetration, don't ask the welder to do more than it can. Going slow just piles up a big bead, it doesn't get you any de… 1991 Ford Bronco - Run the second bead on the right side. My garage was a high traffic area at this point, so even with screens up I was stopping severy 2-4"… 1991 Ford Bronco - Run the lefthand bead. Fewer stops this time, too, which is good since it's easy to trap small pockets on the last pass if you don't carry… 1991 Ford Bronco - Now, flip it over and get a look at the backside (I've already given the plate time to cool and cleaned the paint off here). As you can see… 1991 Ford Bronco - Tilt your 4-1/2" angle grinder up 45* and V out the backside. Start with the worst spot, and open it out until any sign of a gap has disapp… 1991 Ford Bronco - A single fast pass will finish the backside. I probably could've skipped these last steps if I were leaving the 1/16" or so of weld bead bu… 1991 Ford Bronco - But I'm grinding this plate smooth on both sides, because it's highly visible. Where's the weld? :) 1991 Ford Bronco - I need a 2-1/2" flange at the backside of this plate, so we decided to see if we could clamp itt, heat it, and fold it over. I didn't know… 1991 Ford Bronco - Not a chance! Of course, if I'd known last weekend how Dave was doing his bends I could've done that, but for some reason that had never oc… 1991 Ford Bronco - Alright, here's the forward side of our new reinforcing flange, a 2x2x1/8 angle. These PL2x2x3/16 plates welded to the end are reinforcemen… 1991 Ford Bronco - First pass down the root of the fillet complete. Honestly, I could probably have left it like this. I also discovered that even with a good… 1991 Ford Bronco - Three more passes complete the fillet. Trying to keep it hot and fast as I can. 1991 Ford Bronco - Another two passes to finish the weld of the endplate to the winch plate. Note the little bit of porosity at the end of the long weld on th… 1991 Ford Bronco - Opposite endplate, likewise three passes below and one on the top. 1991 Ford Bronco - The whole stiffened winch plate assembly, flipped upside down end for end so I can clean the bottom. I'll butt weld the top to the bumper,… 1991 Ford Bronco - Back where it should be, with areas to be welded now cleaned of paint and grime. Just needs to be clamped in place. 1991 Ford Bronco - After screwing around with the little MIG welder all morning, I decided I should really use the welder big enough for the job for these cri… 1991 Ford Bronco - Still haven't chipped the slag from the last rod. Not the prettiest thing in the world, but I could've spent all day with the MIG gun tryin… 1991 Ford Bronco - I really need to spend a lot more time practicing with the big arc welder. I think I'd end up getting things done a lot faster, in the end.… 1991 Ford Bronco - One of the areas I ended up having to grind porosity and run a second pass on. I ended up deciding to do two passes on most of the run, bec… 1991 Ford Bronco - Another section of the area where I did two passes. Still need to work on my rod control and get a more even bead.