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Fabbing a push bar.

8K views 34 replies 10 participants last post by  Jasen 
#1 ·
I started building my push bar today. I've seen the adapted Avalanche bars used by a few members, but being a two wheel drive I'm going for more of a police style "urban assault vehicle" look, so I decided to roll my own...

First, the upright template:


Then, transfer to some metal. I had some .25"x4" flat stock at the shop, but needed 6"...so I welded two pieces together. That's why that weld line is there:


Now on to the mounting brackets. Made them out of some monster angle iron I had in the scrap pile. Luckily the stock bumper bolts let me line the upright up with the grill separation at the headlights. I did have to heat up the angle and tweak it to line up "square" with the van, because of the curve of the bumper:



Here are the uprights mocked up on the brackets:


That's as far as I got today, which isn't to bad since I was actually working for a living while doing this side project. I did tweak the uprights to match the angle of the line where the grill meets the headlight/turn signals. I've still got to decide what size tubing for the top tube, and will probably use oval or rectangular tubing for the bottom "rung" where you would mount lights.
 
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#3 ·
+1

That's what I'm looking for too, something for the center. Looks great.

-Andrew
 
#5 ·
If and when I have to push another vehicle, I tie a wheeless tire to the front of the truck, suspended from the hood latch, and that gives me a real good cushy bumper between the pusher and pushee.

Works like a charm, is cheap, and makes me look more "civilian" than "smokey". What I intend on doing is rigging permanent jumper cables under the hood with a battery disconnect switch on the +.

Not against the push bar idea, don't get me wrong, but I have had to jump more times than push. If push came to shove, it might be better to have a tow bar on the front of the truck so you wouldn't need a

tow truck, and usually the cops are only interested in getting a disabled car clear of the road to allow traffic to pass, not long distance hauling/pushing.

Other than that, what you are doing "Looks" very chick. I supose you are going to put a good bit of rubber on the front side ?

Bob
 
#6 ·
This is mainly for looks, though I'm happy the bumper bolts worked out to be in the correct spot for my brackets. I do plan to use some 1" or 1.5" flat stock on the front edges of the uprights, and hopefully find some rubber "C" channel trim to clip over that. The Westin bar on my old dually had that, but so far I'm not finding anything online for the rubber trim.

I did chop off a piece of 2" tubing just to get ideas on tubing size, and it's pretty close to what I'm after. I made the uprights close enough to the grill that I'm going to need to contour whatever the top tube ends up being just to clear the point of the hood.

Didn't get a lot accomplished on it today other than painting and permanently mounting the brackets, and drill the mounting holes for the uprights.

 
#7 ·
Wood try googling loading dock pumpers, semi truck accessories or tow truck supplies,for the rubber bumpers. I think one time searching for the latter I ran across nice thick solid up you can glue on, like you see on tow truck push plates.
 
#8 ·
Jasen, that got me going with the right "google fu", found a couple places that have what I need.

Here is todays pics. Just a couple mocked up top bar shots. Feel free to advise on the look of this. It's 2 1/8" tubing. As you can tell I had to do some cut/fit to get the curve close to where I want it. I'm thinking this one and another similar down just below the top edge of the bumper. Will also do something just above the bumper line as a light bracket point.



 
#9 ·
Glad I could point you in the right direction.
I like it. Why not just one tube in front the the bumper and then run some tabs back over the bumper for the lights, or maybe a 1.5" tube running between the tabs set back in over the bumper for the lights.
 
#11 ·
Getting close to phase 1 being finished. I'm still planning to weld flat stock to the leading edge of the uprights to attach the rubber C channel, but for now I'm painting and riding as is. The C channel will have to be ordered, and I'm waiting for the company to contact me with prices and options. I really wanted it mounted today, but humidity is to high for my paint to dry quickly, so it's spending the night at the shop tonight.


 
#17 ·
redfury said:
Jasen said:
That'll make those prius drivers get out of your way.
they won't see the bar though, the alignment of the uprights is almost perfectly inline with the grill lines.
:bow:
The will when it's rubbing up against their head rest :mrgreen:
 
#22 ·
I actually do have on-board air now...Viair 480c and a 5gal. tank, but I'm picky on air horns. If I can't find a set of Nathan K5's or some Leslie's, then I'm going to do the caddy horn setup. I was really surprised how good they sound for 12 volt horns.
 
#23 ·
drmmhmd said:
Lumpy said:
Jasen said:
The will when it's rubbing up against their head rest :mrgreen:
And when you honk those six cadillac Astro Blaster horns behind the grille.



Lump... :layrubber:
how do you upload a video?
If you up load it to youtube then post it using the youtube tab over there-------> and copy and paste the embedded link from youtube.
 
#24 ·
2 horns each of GM tones C,D and F
Countless people ignored the stock horns to many times. But with these, every time I've had to engage the "HEY IDIOT" alert system they have not gone un noticed. I've seen people duck, nearly bang their head on the side window, they've even got a truckers attention that was coming over on top of me. To date, every time the offender has corrected their course out of my way.

 
#26 ·
I don't think they're marked with their pitch. Mine are off a Cadillac.
But obviously you could remove them from any kind of veh. I would
think that bigger vehicles have the more "Asphalt Boat" sounding horns,
while little VWs and so forth have "Beep Beep" horns.

My two OEMs plus 4 from a Caddi play a C6 chord - C E G A
or an inversion of an Am7 chord - A C E G

Sing Along with Lump
 
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