Some referred to these trucks as a Cummins wrapped in Dodge. Most all the Dodge is worked out of this one now. There was still plenty of that thick steel tubing from the old brush guard left, and the winch bumper mods turned out so well in back, I decided to give the front similar treatment.
One of the Dodgy things in these models was the woefully lacking structure and reinforcement in the quarters and bumpers. They would literally crush like tinfoil under any sort of serious impact. The bumpers themselves are just thick, stamped sheet metal. The front in particular, has literally no bracing in the corners whatsoever. Guessing maybe weight was an issue in the design/integration phase. The frames themselves were sketchy thin before ’91.
So I guess some owners decided to add things like the brush guard, glommed on with a couple extra bumper brackets. That was basically useless addressing the fundamental structural shortcoming in the chassis design. This one’s going off-road, so a little help in the impact resistance department is called for. The project started by converting four separate bumper brackets into one solid front center section.
Then I welded thick tubing into the back top and bottom of the bumper, joined on top to the inner fender bracket with a piece of control surface linkage from an A-10 attack jet I saved from Germany. The bottom reinforcement is joined clear across the center section with spacers hammered into place that will just fall out if the bumper ever needs removed again.
It’s near impervious to direct lateral impacts on the corners now. I don’t think that power steering cooler has anything to worry about anymore, either.
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