Update:
I spent some time working on making a cardboard mock-up of the bumper design that I modeled on the computer. Below are some pictures and a few things that I figured out when going to my loose cardboard mock up.
I had stated before that I was contemplating cutting the van body to accommodate the bumper wrap around but after some more investigating this doesn't really seem like a viable option anymore. The body panel connection at the two panels seems to be pretty vital in the strength of the exterior body panel. So the only way I see to cut this area out would be to then reweld and seal off this cavity higher up. This seems like not only a lot more work but also more risk than I would like to take on.
So that leaves the second option of wrapping the bumper around the existing bodywork, which surprisingly actually lined up pretty well with the initial design that I posted. Though like
E-350 pointed out this will create a two-plane departure from the wheel well to the rear bumper face. Although this isn't ideal for sliding on, I think it would still work and hopefully, it's not going to be something that is tested frequently.
The second issue with this plan is that the body will move independently of the bumper, which may cause some issues when the van is crossed up. At the advisement of Ray (
1der) I used some jack stand to try to cross the van up in the garage to see how much body flex to the bumper there was. Surprisingly there was not as much as I would think at the rear bumper, especially in comparison to the front bumper. So after that test, I decided that this design may still work, it just may require some modifications to allow for some gapping in some areas. I think this will also be mitigated some by adding in the hitch frame cross-member and the bumper wing to frame mounts.
During the process of mocking this up, I decided to make a few adjustments to the dimensions. Some of these were done just to get things fitting better to real-world constraints and others were changed because in the real world it just looked wrong to me. The biggest change was the distance that the rear bumper extended past the rear of the van. I pulled this dimension in a few inches from where my initial mock-up was, and it seemed to flow much better once this was done. The downside to this is that it may limit the space that I will have for the possibility of a top-mounted storage hatch like the Aluminess design. Realistically I think that the biggest reason it looked wrong to me was that there was no spare tire or storage box, so It started to make it seem like the bumper was sticking out really far. So this may change as I look at it more.
So now after all my rambling that most probably don't care about here are some pictures of my mock-up.
One thing to note is the brush guard mock-up is really rough and the forward most piece in the final design will be closer to the light edge. I was just stuck working with standard sweep dimensions. Also, it will be 1.5" not 1" like shown
(
Side Note: If you followed along with my build thread you might notice that in these pictures the background to the van looks a little tidier than it did previously. The last few months I finally got around to building garage cabinets and pretty much completely finished out my garage. Now the only thing that looks messy at times is my workbench!)
And here are a few images of a more updated model that shows my current idea for the hinge system. This is pretty much a direct copy of how Aluminess does it, but instead of 2 hinge points I am thinking 4 so it can accommodate more weight. For latching systems, I am thinking of using something like a
Southco Rotary latch with a cable-driven actuator (this would be the more complicated setup) or something like a
Brute Force Fab Latching System.