krustyballer16

all painted! we color sanded on most of it and my dad is going to buff it this week! the fender flares and bumper caps will be black and arent painted yet. will be soon. i think this is the first video you guys have seen of this.... enjoy

2 weekends ago I went to both badlands and redbird with my side by side. I wasn't too impressed sigh either. I'd probably never go back to either to wheel. But wherever this club meeting in at I'm taking my side by side to drive around and look at everybody's trucks... They're both the same distance from me so either works for me...redbird is cheaper though...

When the powder coating is free, why not? And it all better last a loong time with all the money and time we've got in it. But might as well do it right the first time!

They show up on my laptop and phone...

the cab got painted wednesday! it looks almost black but its midnight blue with lots of metal flake. unless youre right up on it, you don't see the metal flake. everything else got painted yesterday. my dad has been there giving it all the first buffing. were going in the morning to set the bed on and hopefully throw the gas tank in and driveshaft so its ready to drive on the trailer and bring it home. then its just a million little things. got my gas tank straps, headlight bezels and stupid sunroof frame powdercoated last night. (the little tiny piece is the catch for my battery box lid lock.) the whole box will be powdercoated dixie chopper textured black. just have to wait until they run that color again. ive got to order a new sunroof glass too. we broke the original one. :doh: oops.

I got the first sheet of brackets nested for the lasers. It will be a couple weeks (5-6) before they czn cut them. So that'll give me time to set everything up. There isn't any shutting me down. Only way OT wasn't gonna happen here was if it was gonna take more drawing then what was supplied by Terra. But that was all golden so we're here at the end of discussing it and at the brink of bringing back a hitch for our amazing trucks. Win lose or draw thaw brackets are coming!

Well either way, if its gonna fail and explode and throw a trailer 50ft in the air, I'm gonna have them cut out and will sell them to the ones that want them. As for the people that don't,..... I guess you don't have to buy them, ill cry but I guess you don't have to purchase them....

Ok I understand you now. To make the plate more ridgid it needs a bend or something running parallel to it so it doesn't bend sideways... For as "long" as it is, and for what it's used for it shouldn't bend. They have limits.if you exceed them sure it'll bend or break but not under normal or slightly above normal stress. I know yours is 3/8 and shorter but why doesn't yours have that extra bend in it?

Yay internet! Gotta get all the arguing out in here so its not cluttering up my for sale page later on. Ha.

The exhaust isn't gonna change. It's already powder coated and I can't bend it. It'd be easier to just cut the corner off the hitch bracket. It'll clear it no problem. The exhaust doesn't vibrate that much.

so there are plenty of bolts? yes? no? i think so. for what an MJ can pull, yes. if somebody wants more holes then theyll have to make their own brackets. the picture i posted^^ of the factory/ uhaul hitch doesnt have gussets on it... and they made thousands like that. in theory, the reciever would probably rip off before the cross tube from the brackets. what "C" shaped side brackets are you talking about? what i am making is an exact copy of the hitch in the picture^^ which is what i have had on my truck.... why won't my brackets/ hitch work? its the same as yours except not built as a bumper....

i didnt design these brackets, just going off the drawing. i won't be using the shackle hole and i stated earlier that the buyer could cut it off. and again, i didnt design it, the factory hitch bolts to the bumper..... (i weld Otis Elevators for a living) and i would hope that if youre going to build something as important as a hitch that you have some common sense. how is buying these brackets and buying front bumper brackets from a company different? if you don't buy their completed bumper then i would assume you would be liable when building your own bumper (or hitch) and ill just write on the page for when somebody orders that i assume no liability with this builder part. exactly. if done right it shouldnt twist or turn or pull or anything. if needed i can make a step by step, in color instruction book so everybody can do it. (still assuming no liability)

so i ran into a problem on my truck today with these plates. the ones that i cut out at home that match the stock hitch hits my exhaust... and the lower "long" plates i had cut out at work won't even fit on the passenger side because they won't clear my exhaust. so I'm throwing out the idea of lowering them all to fit my bumper and leaving them to match the stock hitches. and just modify mine to clear the exhaust. (that is 4" exhaust and a 5" tip) ((the holes line up though, so theres that little win))

its sitting in the paint booth and is all taped up! my painter said if he had a few hours this weekend he would paint the cab, if not, itll be next week. I'm getting excited! and i test fitted my hitch side plates...didnt go as planned. awful close to the exhaust. it actually hits it.

and i didnt realize until now what the piece of angle on top of the hitch that attaches to the receiver and the cross tube bolts to the underside of the stock bumper. mind blown. ha. (item B in the sketch) since the plates are made 1/2" longer, that piece won't bolt to the underside of the bumper, if anybody was going to want me to build a whole hitch and do that...

Here's the stock hitch (I copied my stock hitch and cut out with my plasma a couple months ago) versus what will be getting cut out soon. The square hole is dropped down 1/2" to better clear my bumper I built. The top plate only has a 2" hole in it cuz Thats what size I thought it was. So Thats why it looks like more than a 1/2" difference. And you can also see the hole that the spring bolt goes through. I will be leaving that part on when they're lasered out but could cut them off if requested.

What's going to be the best way to get an accurate list of interested people? Have everybody PM me, like a few of you have, or start a new page? Cuz after a while it will get hard to sift through these posts for orders... I guess I could just wait til next week when I should know a price and start a page (if I can do that) with all the info and people can post on it...

Since everybody will most likely be putting their own hitches together I could also have them include and cut out pieces to cap off the 2.5" channel if people are interested in that. I am going to make the 2.5" hole square instead of with radii because I've already found that different tubing has different rounded corners so a square hole would be a better universal fit and I can cut the caps out of that hole (a 2" square)

Doesn't matter. And I can, and probably will, make them without the 4th hole that the spring bolt runs through. And I'll probably have the 3- 1/4" spacers per side lasered out too and weld em on.

What's the best way,if I do this, to go about making a page or a list or having people contact Me so I can figure out how many would be interested? If possible I'd like to make it a pay half before and half upon receiving them. That way I'm covered a little

I could. But I run into the hassle of not having money to buy steel and then the lasers finding time to cut them for me and all that. I'd like to do it and help everybody out and even build the whole hitch for a few extra bucks but it might be a while. I am going to go price a sheet of 1/4" and 2.5" square tubing. And I could see what the lasers could do for me. I just don't wanna cut 20 sets of them and sit on them for years.... I didn't actually bolt them up but they look like they're perfect. I've still gotta put the 1/4" spacer behind them to space out for the bumper bracket. I could make that hole smaller and weld it on for a perfect fit.

Looks like someone did an excellent job on the design (hint, hint, wink wink) Yes thank you.

left work with these last night (2 sets) i used this picture, gave it to an engineer at work to draw from. fits perfectly. https://docs.google....ZMVk/edit?pli=1 only thing i messed up on was i didnt look at this drawing very closely. stock hitch uses 2.5" tubing and i bought 2" tubing.... so ill have to just buy more tubing....

I lucked out with the fitment of mine. Fits so nicely. Your 3.4 is 3" wider and 6" longer than my 3.3. And 70lbs heavier which isn't a big deal. In the pic of it on the trailer the tires look so small. :/

thank you. And no I don't have CAD files. I had an engineer at work draw them up a couple months ago and they're probably long gone by now. I gave him a printout of a drawing on Google when I searched it. And the bumper brackets...I'm not sure if they fit yet. I combined 2 drawings and guessed. Thats why I only did one set for now. Sorry...