Fabricating a Rear Bumper for the Jeep Cherokee
My old rear bumper had gotten pretty mangled. In fact, it was so bent that it was difficult to open the hatch. Every time I dropped into a ditch or V notch, the bumper was always dragging. I wanted something slimmer and stronger. But I did not want to spend any money.
The whole concept of Scuffy II has been to build a reliable and capable off road vehicle with minimum investment. Sometimes I have had to sacrifice appearance for functionality. I decided I could do the same with the rear bumper and build one out of whatever scrap I had lying around.
I started with a piece of two inch conduit. It seemed strong enough and light enough. But since the back of the Jeep is curved slightly a straight pipe did not look right or provide protection. I wanted to be able to back into a tree and not break the hatch or a tail light housing.
I solved that problem by using my pipe bender and putting a slight curve in the pipe. I then decided to fabricate brackets to mount the pipe so that it stuck out about half the pipe past the hatch and tail lights. That should keep it from dragging when coming up out of holes.
I wanted to use the stock mounting points so I looked around and found a piece of I beam that had holes that looked like they were the right spacing already. I simply cut the beam in half and had my two brackets. I just had to ream the holes a bit to make them match the holes it the Jeep. I made a few notches to get them to clear the hatch and other flanges at the rear of the Cherokee.
I then made half moon cuts to hold the pipe. I used vise grips to line up the pipe in the brackets and then tack welded it into place. I then pulled the assembly off and moved it to the welding table to finish welding it up.
I had purposely cut the pipe long because I was not sure what I wanted to do with the ends. I had thought about making bends to match the front bumper but I could not make a tight enough radius with my bender to do hat I wanted and still protect the bottom of the tail lights.
I eventually decided to make angled cut on the ends to somewhat match the lines of the Cherokee. I set up my band saw at the angle I wanted to cut both ends the same. I liked the look but not the sharp edge it left. Also, there was a gap between the body and the pipe where I could easily hang a small tree.
I decided to make end caps that covered the end of the pipe and extended forward to fill the gap. I searched the scrap pile again and came up with a piece of 3x3x1/4 angle that I cut into two plates. I welded them to the ends of the pipe and smoothed the corners.
I painted the whole thing flat black and bolted it to the back of the Jeep. The rear tow hook is much more accessible now. I can open the hatch easily now. I will have to give it a test drive to see how it handles dragging the mud.
