Re-aligning Big Blue's Warn Bumper

[Gary Lewis]

When we used Big Blue's winch to pull the Mercury Mountaineer onto the trailer the other night we put a tremendous strain on the winch and, therefore, the front bumper.  Enough so that at one point Steve/FoxFord33 and I thought the bumper shifted.  However, I'm not 100% sure the bumper actually shifted, especially since I can't find any damage.  Maybe the trailer shifted which moved the truck?

There wasn't a key for the Merc so we were dragging all four tires as the tranny was in Park.  We had the trailer coupled to the hitch that's bolted to the front bumper with the same bolts as winch is, so my thinking was that there wasn't much force on the bumper itself as all of the force would have been neutralized right there at that 1/4" thick mounting plate where the hitch and the winch mount.  However, I now realize that I had a 6" drop drawbar on, so with the height of the winch there might have been 12" of "leverage" between the ball and the winch line, and that would attempt to tilt the bumper down.

I measured today and found that the mounting plate is tipped down at the front 5 degrees from the truck, but I don't know how it was angled before.  And looking the bumper and its mounts over I can't see any obvious bends.  So I'm asking for your thoughts on what might have happened.

But towards that end here are two pics.  The one on the left shows the 5 degree angle, with the truck sitting dead level.  And the one on the right shows how the bumper connects to the frame, with two large bolts top and bottom, which anchor 1/4" thick pieces of the bumper system.  The big piece is welded to the 1/4" thick winch attachment plate, which is the horizontal piece on the right, and the "arm" that goes forward/right is a 1/4" thick piece that anchors the front of the bumper.  And none of those pieces or the bolts show any sign of damage.

Also, you'll probably notice the washers spacing the bumper away from the frame.  There is a different number of spacers on the passenger's side, all of which was done to get the bumper to sit at right angles to the truck.  Obviously I could now pull the washers on the top bolt to rotate the bumper up, but there are no washers on the passenger's side top to pull.

Thoughts?  

[essmaker]

Sorry, nothing intelligent to add. But, if isn't broken don't fix it. 😀

I bet the truck moved a bit, or lurched, or the cable rolled in the spool which made it seem like the winch gave.

[Nothing Special]

essmaker wrote

....  But, if isn't broken don't fix it. 😀....

You must not know Gary very well

Gary Lewis wrote

....  However, I now realize that I had a 6" drop drawbar on, so with the height of the winch there might have been 12" of "leverage" between the ball and the winch line, and that would attempt to tilt the bumper down....

Maybe don't think of it as trying to tilt the bumper down, but rather trying to rotate the bumper?  What that led me to was maybe there's some clearance in the mounting bolts and it shifted through that clearance?  If I'm understanding that picture correctly, it's looking at the mounting points on the driver's side, with the bumper (the front of the truck) to the left and the truck on the right.  If the bumper rotated CCW from this perspective the back of the bumper would go up and the front would go down.  So could the bumper have shifted up through the clearance in those bolts?

[Gary Lewis]

Yes, he doesn't know me very well.  How could he as he only joined this year.  

You may be right, Bob.  If I remember correctly the front holes are slots.  Or at least one is.  So what I'll do tomorrow is to loosen it up and see if it'll rotate up.  Won't take much.  We shall see.

[Gary Lewis]

The slots on the front of the bumper are certainly slotted, as you can see in the pic below of Dad's frame, and it looks like the bolts may have slipped.  So I'll need to put the truck up on the lift, put the safety stand under the bumper, loosen the bolts, lift the bumper up, and then retighten the bolts.

Thanks for the suggestion, Bob.  

But right now I need to do some work on testing the new forum platforms.  

[Ifitaintbroke]

Don't fix it? No, fix it till it is!

[Gary Lewis]

Well, it isn't truly broken.  It is just out of alignment.  So instead of fixing it until it is broken I'm going to align it until it isn't - misaligned.

But with the grandtwins due Wednesday for a week and the clock ticking on the InVision forum decision I'm waiting to do the alignment.  In fact, the noise in the steering column and the power steering leak have higher priorities than the bumper.