When our BJ42 arrived it had a bull bar on it. One of the first things I did was remove it because it was damaged and barely held in place by the broken and bent bolts. It would rattle horribly on every little bump. I knew I’d fix it some day. Today was the the day.
It turns out that our BJ42 has a bent frame. Thankfully the bend is only in the first 8 inches of the frame where the bumper mounts on the left hand side. The bend isn’t significant enough to impact steering or the suspension. It appears as though the cruiser smacked something very hard with the bull bar and it ended up bending the frame. (It took me a while to figure this out.) I ordered a new bumper and bumper brackets to make the front end a little straighter. It helped some but I still had to make a few special accommodations to get the bull bar close to straight.
I cut out the three center sections of the bull bar because the welds were cracked or the pieces were bent.
I had to spend quite a bit of time with the grinder cleaning up the old welds. I went through two 4″ grinding wheels cleaning up this mess.
I tacked the three new pieces of pipe in place. I just eyeballed the placement. If you look close you can tell that the bumper is slightly higher on the right than the left. I tried to guesstimate the best placement of the center bars to minimize the visual impact.
In the photo above you can see a short stack of washers under the bull bar mount on the right side. I had to use these as a spacer to offset the bend in the frame so the two bull bar uprights would be close to lining up. I hope this is going to be OK over time.
Now that it’s all welded up it’s time to hit it with some primer and paint.
I cleaned the new steel bars and covered the whole area with primer.
Flat black spray paint to the rescue. I’m happy with the way it turned out and a bit surprised how stiff it is now that it’s complete. I can see how this bull bar would transmit an impact right into the frame.
It’s strange driving with the bull bar in place. It’s very visible over the hood. It’s not in the way visually or distracting. It’s just different. I’m glad to finally have this done. Tomorrow the new suspension is getting installed and then there’s just a few minor things to handle prior to starting on the aluminum roof rack.