Just how strong are the stock bumpers? Anyone weld in a hitch receiver?

Woodrow said:

Funny you should bring this up. I’m in the middle of modifying my stock rear bumper. Though thin, I think the metal is not your average mild steel. It has a fair bit of memory. I did a stubby on my front recently. The end was bent and the deformity extended beyond my planned cut. I was expecting to need to reshape it with some heat and or force. But when I made my cut the deformity sprang back, no bending necessary. Based on this, I’m going to weld a receiver into the rear (for a 2 bike rack only-not for towing or recovery). I’ll reinforce it some but I’m feeling like it may work. Here it is trimmed to make clearance for my recovery hook:
View attachment 357322Next, I cut out hole and slot for the receiver and welded up some other holes:
View attachment 357324

View attachment 357323
I’ll try to remember to post the result when I’m done.

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For those considering this note he's only planning to use it for a bike rack. There's no way I'd weld/bolt a receiver hitch to either factory bumper for anything more than that. But even with the statement "I'll reinforce it some" I'm not so sure how long it will last with the the weight of a bicycle bouncing on it.

Jerry Bransford said:

For those considering this note he's only planning to use it for a bike rack. There's no way I'd weld/bolt a receiver hitch to either factory bumper for anything more than that. But even with the statement "I'll reinforce it some" I'm not so sure how long it will last with the the weight of a bicycle bouncing on it.

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Agree. Just fooling around with metal fab and trying stuff.

MikekiM said:

That’s exactly what I was thinking. Very interested in how this turns out.

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It will probably take a week or 2 until I have time to finish, but I'll report back.

As long as you are just "fooling around with metal fab and trying stuff", I thought I would pass on the results of a similar project completed in the past year. I wanted a rear hitch that didn't hang low, but had towing capacity. My solution was to "install" a real tow hitch, modified to the purpose, and then cover it with the stock bumper rather than try to use the stock bumper for support. This required a custom rear frame crossmember (I have an LJ) that included modified rear body support points, etc. The bumper slips over the hitch and bolts up. Go ahead and laugh at all this effort and still including the milk jugs, but its my jeep, and I like it. The jeep also has a 1.25" body lift and a raised tail to cover the crack, so a lot of work in the back two feet of the rig, but I enjoy the fabrication side of this hobby, and I was, as you say, just fooling around with metal fab. The picture without the stock bumper is the major components just sitting in place without the finished welding and a few brackets.

Good Hope said:

As long as you are just "fooling around with metal fab and trying stuff", I thought I would pass on the results of a similar project completed in the past year. I wanted a rear hitch that didn't hang low, but had towing capacity. My solution was to "install" a real tow hitch, modified to the purpose, and then cover it with the stock bumper rather than try to use the stock bumper for support…

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Love that! Nice job. I’ve contemplated something similar with a flipped drop hitch and my stock bumper to cover it (and may do it yet if my current experiment doesn’t work for my bike rack).

Not in the front, but another home-made one.
I was thinking more about departure angle than strength.
I don't plan on towing with it, but I tied mine into the second (LJ) crossmember.
Plus it has frame tie-in brackets just in case.

LONGJP2 said:

Not in the front, but another home-made one.
I was thinking more about departure angle than strength.
I don't plan on towing with it, but I tied mine into the second (LJ) crossmember.
Plus it has frame tie-in brackets just in case.

View attachment 357834

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I like that. Looks simple and effective. For my Jeep I wasn’t after a departure angle increase as my Jeep is more of a trail runner and I wanted to use the bumper as a step to get things off of the roof rack.

Good Hope said:

As long as you are just "fooling around with metal fab and trying stuff", I thought I would pass on the results of a similar project completed in the past year. I wanted a rear hitch that didn't hang low, but had towing capacity. My solution was to "install" a real tow hitch, modified to the purpose, and then cover it with the stock bumper rather than try to use the stock bumper for support. This required a custom rear frame crossmember (I have an LJ) that included modified rear body support points, etc. The bumper slips over the hitch and bolts up. Go ahead and laugh at all this effort and still including the milk jugs, but its my jeep, and I like it. The jeep also has a 1.25" body lift and a raised tail to cover the crack, so a lot of work in the back two feet of the rig, but I enjoy the fabrication side of this hobby, and I was, as you say, just fooling around with metal fab. The picture without the stock bumper is the major components just sitting in place without the finished welding and a few brackets.

View attachment 357572

View attachment 357573

View attachment 357574

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Nicely done.

Good Hope said:

I like that. Looks simple and effective. For my Jeep I wasn’t after a departure angle increase as my Jeep is more of a trail runner and I wanted to use the bumper as a step to get things off of the roof rack.

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HF makes a real nice step for a standard receiver, I have one on my Silverado.

@MikeM @Woodrow the problem you guys are going to run into is the fatigue of the thin metal due to the extra leverage of the load in the hitch worrying up and down due to bumps. Think along the lines of the body sheet metal cracking and tearing from a spare tire that is not secured up to the snubbers to stop it from moving.

Mike's front bumper can be addressed to a degree by adding a thicker plate full width from the outside of one frame horn to the outside of the other, across the inside face of the bumper. You are going to want the plate thick enough to take up the gap between the the front of the frame horn and the back face of the bumper when you have the bumper bolted up. Fortunately the OEM engineers already reinforced the bumper bolt holes That extra thickness along with being stich welded to the bumper should give you enough resistance to the applied torque of the hitch basket (lever) to stop most of the worrying and bending of the front bumper. You could further enhance the bracing by adding a small strip of plate to the inside top and bottom and making it more of a C channel, except at the bolt holes of course.

Woodrow on the other hand, unless he goes down the path that @Good Hope took (nice job btw), my suspicion is that because the rear bumper is 1. a full square tube vs C channel like the front, 2. the metal is thin (3/32 ish), and 3. the rear bumper is held on by two small standoffs from the rear cross member instead of directly attached to the cross member, the majority of torque forces are going amplify due to a longer lever to get applied directly to the standoffs and where they attach to the rear bumper. You stand a really good chance of either tearing the bumper material or the cross member material (probably the bumper) unless you figure out a way to do some sort of frame tie in. I don't personally see how that would work as that rear bumper material is just too thin to support that function for any length of time.

Sorry, my OCD inner garage engineer took over the keyboard and I just couldn't stop him. Feel free to point out any errors in my logic, I am always up to learn something new.

Nope, I have seen at least one stubby bumper with a receiver in it, so there must be a market for it. It's not for me, but you do you bro. I guess as long as where you are going is really flat because now you have next to zero approach angle, so watch out for steep driveways and parking lots. Maybe the beach? Other thing to consider is "at speed" steering when you add a bunch of weight way out in front of the wheels. Just a couple random thoughts.

I have been thinking of adding a winch and bolting on a receiver hitch to the front of my truck. Winch for obvious reasons, but the receiver just in case I want to hook up to a trailer and winch a load on with the truck.

Good Hope said:

As long as you are just "fooling around with metal fab and trying stuff", I thought I would pass on the results of a similar project completed in the past year. I wanted a rear hitch that didn't hang low, but had towing capacity. My solution was to "install" a real tow hitch, modified to the purpose, and then cover it with the stock bumper rather than try to use the stock bumper for support. This required a custom rear frame crossmember (I have an LJ) that included modified rear body support points, etc. The bumper slips over the hitch and bolts up. Go ahead and laugh at all this effort and still including the milk jugs, but its my jeep, and I like it. The jeep also has a 1.25" body lift and a raised tail to cover the crack, so a lot of work in the back two feet of the rig, but I enjoy the fabrication side of this hobby, and I was, as you say, just fooling around with metal fab. The picture without the stock bumper is the major components just sitting in place without the finished welding and a few brackets.

View attachment 357572

View attachment 357573

View attachment 357574

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Awesome, I love it.

MikekiM said:

That's good feedback and totally feasible. I've been looking into alternatives and I haven't found any acceptable stubby front bumpers with receivers built in. I can't be the first person to want to mount a removable cargo basket, can I ?

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Jscherb has one mounted on top.

https://wranglertjforum.com/threads/quick-install-remove-winch-mount.39528/#post-656564

Is there room inside the bumper (in front of the tube) for a 1.25" receiver hitch.
Cut one up and weld it in between the frame rails and cover it like Good Hope did.
No real weight on the bumper itself.

Well I said I’d follow up on this so I am. It didn’t work.

Like @Jerry Bransford and @chudlet said, the metal of the stock rear bumper is too weak. Here’s where I got to:





The angle iron is also plug welded to the top and face of the stock bumper. I was also planning to link the top and bottom behind the receiver and box the ends. However, before doing all that, I test mounted it, put a hitch in it and stood on it (200#). The bumper twisted between 5 and 10 degrees. No good. The loaded 2 bike rack would’ve been 150# max but a longer lever arm.

So that was fun but moving on…

LONGJP2 said:

Not in the front, but another home-made one.
I was thinking more about departure angle than strength.
I don't plan on towing with it, but I tied mine into the second (LJ) crossmember.
Plus it has frame tie-in brackets just in case.

View attachment 357834

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Do you have a thread on this? I'm particularly interested in how you tied in to the next crossmember as mine would benefit from the same. I've got some ideas but I always like to know if someone else had a better one.

Woodrow said:

Well I said I’d follow up on this so I am. It didn’t work.

Like @Jerry Bransford and @chudlet said, the metal of the stock rear bumper is too weak. Here’s where I got to:
View attachment 362354

View attachment 362355

View attachment 362356
The angle iron is also plug welded to the top and face of the stock bumper. I was also planning to link the top and bottom behind the receiver and box the ends. However, before doing all that, I test mounted it, put a hitch in it and stood on it (200#). The bumper twisted between 5 and 10 degrees. No good. The loaded 2 bike rack would’ve been 150# max but a longer lever arm.

So that was fun but moving on…

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Thanks for the follow up. Some cool ideas on the reinforcement and I really like your welding setup. Might have to incorporate that in my space