This is a high clearance DIY weld-together rear bumper kit for the 1st gen (1995-2006) Mercedes Sprinter. It provides substantially improved rear end ground clearance over the flimsy factory rear bumper as well as excellent protection, heavy duty offroad recovery points and an integrated 2" hitch receiver. The integrated hitch receiver is recessed into the bumper, providing a clean appearance and a smooth bumper surface that will easily slide over obstacles rather than hang up on them like a traditional hitch receiver can. The bumper mounts to the vehicle unibody using a total of 16 factory mounting points with included heavy duty mounting plates. While this is certainly overkill, it ensures that impact and pulling forces are evenly distributed over the vehicle chassis.
Due to the Sprinter van's unibody construction, the design of the mounting system is especially critical. If a thick steel bumper is poorly mounted to the vehicle unibody, no matter how strong the bumper is, it will simply punch through the unibody mounting points should an impact occur. Our mounting system spreads forces evenly through the Sprinter's thin unibody frame structure, which substantially stiffens the bumper and protects the mounting interfaces. This makes for an extremely durable bumper that will easily shrug off trail impacts and scrapes as well as provide a stiff and secure structure to mount our optional swing out carrier arms to.
After many design iterations, we settled on a bumper that sticks out from the van a few inches in the rear for protection but has very close-fitting corners. This maintains the full range of the Sprinter's double hinged doors as well as reducing weight and keeping the bumper as slim as possible. By doing this, we feel that we have achieved a very tidy bumper profile that will complement the lines of your Sprinter. The low profile design has also resulted in very reasonable weights of 74lbs for the steel bumper and 37lbs for the aluminum version.
The swing out carriers come in either a single or dual sided configuration and are built to accept a tire up to 37" in diameter. Both carriers include mounting brackets for a hilift jack and other recovery items. The dual swing out includes the hilift mount as well as a lockable jerry can holder designed to fit two 20L NATO style jerry cans. These carriers feature heavy duty chromoly heim joint hinges, locking 2000lb toggle latches, T-handle spring pins, and a replaceable UHMW catch pad that provides secure, rattle free operation. The heim joints in conjunction with the toggle latch provide tons of adjustability, allowing for easy assembly and guaranteed alignment of the carrier latch. The single swing out add-on weighs 34lbs and the dual swing out add-on with gas can holder weighs 77lbs.
