DJs74
Bronco Guru
- Joined
- Apr 1, 2014
- Messages
- 1,135
I'd like your opinions on my grill guard. Be honest with likes or dislikes but try to refrain from being hurtful in the event you dislike - LOL!!
I've always been a fan of the 70s & 80s style grill guards / bull bars / bumper guards or whatever terminology you happen to use. When I built my '74 I wanted to purchase one for looks (I love the Bronco grill but it is pretty plain) and to functionally protect my grill (we have a lot of deer here in Northern Virginia and we see at least 5 - 10 - 20 crossing the roads every time we go out). Unfortunately like many other accessories offered back in the day, they are not now. I find lots of these for later model trucks & SUVs but not necessarily for the EB and to try and retrofit a late model just didn't seem worth the time and effort to me. I do like the one Bronco Graveyard offers but its all tubing and I'm kind of partial to the flat plate sides - so... I made my own... It was designed strictly out of my head and by taking some measurements off the Bronco bumper, grill and frame. I'm a mechanical engineer by trade so I have CAD at my disposal, so I made the bar assembly in 3D and it looked pretty good so I took the 3D files and had the side plates CNC'd from 0.25" thick aluminum plates from the CAD files and made the cross bar tubing from McMaster Carr thick walled aluminum tubing, used 1/2" threaded rods inside the tubing with coupling nuts so I could use recessed hex head bolts to sandwich the tubing between the plates - topped off with some fabricated "L" brackets to attach it to the bumper and frame. It's all aluminum construction, which is fairly light but very solid and then I painted it silver metallic with clear coat to match the flares, grill and top (didn't quite hit the match but didn't realize it until it was done - but close enough IMO)
As the title suggests, I'd like the opinions from my Bronco peers. Some may like the idea of the bars and some may not or maybe by chance you didn't but do now after seeing mine (LOL again) or God forbid, you did like them until you see mine and now you don't!! Hope that isn't the case though.
If anyone is interested in this, I would be more than happy to share my CAD files with all the particulars specified regarding materials and assembly philosophies - just let me know. I can post the files here on this site or send them directly to you by e-mail.
I am pretty proud of it, I think it looks great but more importantly, I'm proud of it because I fabricated it myself and I think it represents the bars from "back in the day" pretty well.
Look forward to your comments and glad to share if anyone is interested.
DJs74
I've always been a fan of the 70s & 80s style grill guards / bull bars / bumper guards or whatever terminology you happen to use. When I built my '74 I wanted to purchase one for looks (I love the Bronco grill but it is pretty plain) and to functionally protect my grill (we have a lot of deer here in Northern Virginia and we see at least 5 - 10 - 20 crossing the roads every time we go out). Unfortunately like many other accessories offered back in the day, they are not now. I find lots of these for later model trucks & SUVs but not necessarily for the EB and to try and retrofit a late model just didn't seem worth the time and effort to me. I do like the one Bronco Graveyard offers but its all tubing and I'm kind of partial to the flat plate sides - so... I made my own... It was designed strictly out of my head and by taking some measurements off the Bronco bumper, grill and frame. I'm a mechanical engineer by trade so I have CAD at my disposal, so I made the bar assembly in 3D and it looked pretty good so I took the 3D files and had the side plates CNC'd from 0.25" thick aluminum plates from the CAD files and made the cross bar tubing from McMaster Carr thick walled aluminum tubing, used 1/2" threaded rods inside the tubing with coupling nuts so I could use recessed hex head bolts to sandwich the tubing between the plates - topped off with some fabricated "L" brackets to attach it to the bumper and frame. It's all aluminum construction, which is fairly light but very solid and then I painted it silver metallic with clear coat to match the flares, grill and top (didn't quite hit the match but didn't realize it until it was done - but close enough IMO)
As the title suggests, I'd like the opinions from my Bronco peers. Some may like the idea of the bars and some may not or maybe by chance you didn't but do now after seeing mine (LOL again) or God forbid, you did like them until you see mine and now you don't!! Hope that isn't the case though.
If anyone is interested in this, I would be more than happy to share my CAD files with all the particulars specified regarding materials and assembly philosophies - just let me know. I can post the files here on this site or send them directly to you by e-mail.
I am pretty proud of it, I think it looks great but more importantly, I'm proud of it because I fabricated it myself and I think it represents the bars from "back in the day" pretty well.
Look forward to your comments and glad to share if anyone is interested.
DJs74
Attachments
Last edited:
