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Old 08-21-2014, 05:53 PM   #1
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Reunel Rehab

This is part 1 - Thanks to JohnandMandi, and before them Rallypanam, and before them who knows, I recently got a Ruenel front and rear bumper and an Aluminess spare tire rack. They were rode hard and put up wet, as we say around these parts, and my wife sorta scratched her head at my idea to put these on the van. She wasn't a fan of the polished diamond plate tops, but I told her I would fix that. As John and Mandi can attest to, the biggest fun was me, them and 2 other guys, BIG guys, getting 600 lbs. worth of steel and aluminum in to my tiny BMW wagon, but I'm a glutton for punishment. I also made a 20 hour one-day trip to get them from TN to Florida and back. Like I said, glutton for punishment. The price was right of course.

front bumper before:



I was planning to just spray the tread plate with bed liner and make the whole bumpers smooth black, but I decided any weight removed from these would help so I un-riveted the tread plate and filled the holes with body filler instead.



Then I used lots of energy, sandpaper, filler primer, etc. etc. on them, then finally got them masked off and bedliner sprayed.





I went with the same matte black that I've done all my trim with. It matches Aluminess and Bushwacker black perfectly.





There never seems to be anyone home when I get myself into predicaments like needing to lift a 400# bumper, so it spawns creativity.



After it fell off this apparatus once I managed to get the winch mounted inside. Winch mounting is not a quick 4 bolt process if it's going inside a bumper. It took a little fabrication to get the control box to an accessible location and the damn bolts they send you just aren't easy to get where they need to go. Alas.......I won. Next, drive the jack carefully up to the van.



I'm thrilled with the finished product but I don't have my lights working yet. I'm headed to the woods this weekend. Perhaps I can use all this new steel. Watch out Bambi!





My Curt front reciever still fits fine under there. Nice since my Reunel didn't have a front receiver already.







to be continued. The rear is going to take a little more work.


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Old 08-21-2014, 06:30 PM   #2
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Re: Reunel Rehab

Looks great. Nice job on the finishing.
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Old 08-21-2014, 06:55 PM   #3
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Re: Reunel Rehab

Scotty is clearly the king of resurrecting old metal! Looks great. But boy, that's a heavy bumper!
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Old 08-21-2014, 09:04 PM   #4
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Re: Reunel Rehab

How much weight did you save by removing the diamond plate?
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Old 08-21-2014, 11:44 PM   #5
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Re: Reunel Rehab

I'm one of the three guys that helped Rallypanam with those bumpers when he had his broken arm and they are damn heavy! They've made it quite a way since then. They look great - nice work!
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Old 08-22-2014, 12:14 AM   #6
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Re: Reunel Rehab

I'm just glad I never had to lift those damn things. They seemed heavy based on all the whining from my friends.

The history is the bumpers were on my 2001 SMB when Les bought it new. But I swapped because I had picked up an Aluminess front for my old van for cheap and wanted to keep that. The aluminess tire rack I bought off a guy in Sonoma who had just got the whole Aluminess bumper for his SMB. Think I paid $300.

Super cool you can just pop off the extraneous diamond plate. Way better without!
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Old 08-22-2014, 02:07 AM   #7
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Re: Reunel Rehab

Quote:
Originally Posted by rallypanam
I'm just glad I never had to lift those damn things. They seemed heavy based on all the whining from my friends.

The history is the bumpers were on my 2001 SMB when Les bought it new. But I swapped because I had picked up an Aluminess front for my old van for cheap and wanted to keep that. The aluminess tire rack I bought off a guy in Sonoma who had just got the whole Aluminess bumper for his SMB. Think I paid $300.

Super cool you can just pop off the extraneous diamond plate. Way better without!
Thanks for never offering up the use of your floor jacks or jack stands that day, but your broken arm was certainly good enough to lift some beer bottles!
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Old 08-22-2014, 07:50 AM   #8
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Re: Reunel Rehab

Great job, that's how that front bumper should look!!! If we weren't going to be driving 25-30K plus miles with everything we own we would have done a similar thing. Instead we traded weight in our wallet for weight in the van. We wish the Aluminess had the integrated Hi-lift mount like that one does though. Nice VR12000, that's the one we're going with too.

We can't wait to see the rear bumper. That one is serious business and was hard to part with. It's much lighter than the front.

You forgot to mention the forklift that made loading the front bumper possible. We can't imagine what it would have been like to lift it from the ground first. We're glad those Renuel bumpers have a good home and are not part of a tree removal operation.

Rode hard and put up wet is being nice. They were left for dead but you're doctoring em right.

For shits & giggles - here's how we delivered the van to Chris. He wasn't amused when we told him we wanted to keep our newly fabricated front bumper over the Aluminess one sitting in his front room. Now that's some high quality H2O.


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Old 08-22-2014, 07:51 AM   #9
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Re: Reunel Rehab

Quote:
Originally Posted by mikracer
How much weight did you save by removing the diamond plate?
ummm, about a pound or two, but I didn't know that when I started. Anyway, I like it better without. The rear bumper looks wayyyyy better without. I've seen others with it removed.

Rally, thanks.

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Old 08-22-2014, 07:52 AM   #10
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Re: Reunel Rehab

Awesome John, that's just awesome. A true home build van bumper! If you had used a 4x4 post instead you could bolt a winch to it!

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