The profile of this bumper has been designed with maximum ground clearance and departure angles put first. The bumper profile is only 2" tall underneath the rear hatch and the side wings also sit well above the height of the 3rd generation (1996-2002) Toyota 4Runner's frame. In addition, the recessed hitch receiver and angled lower side wing faces will smoothly slide over obstacles and ensure you do not get hung up on the trail. These features make a very noticeable difference during deep ditch crossing and steep obstacle climbs where other aftermarket bumpers with bulky rear profiles and protruding hitch receivers will hang up and impede your progress on the trail. Simply put, this bumper allows you to forget about departure angle and substantially improves the offroad capability of your 3rd gen 4Runner!
Unlike many aftermarket bumpers that are more or less empty shells with minimal reinforcement, this bumper contains extensive internal ribbing and mounts directly to factory holes in the bottom and sides of the 4Runner's frame for unmatched strength and stiffness. The side wings of this bumper tie directly into the vehicle frame using massive slabs of 3/8" thick plate steel that we CNC-bend here in house. While this bumper is extremely lightweight overall, we decided to go way overkill on the side wing support braces. This results in side wings that will take serious trail hits without flexing or deflecting into the vehicle body. We know that many Toyota 4Runner owners want to run oversized tires, which often create interference and rubbing issues with the stock bumper. We have thought ahead and specifically designed these bumper side wings to clear 35" tires. Most 37" tires will also clear this bumper, but some tire brand/wheel offset combos may require some light trimming.
The main section of this bumper is formed from a single piece of 3/16" wall rectangular tubing. This tubing has slots and tabs cut into all 6 of its sides that then lock into all of the surrounding plate pieces. This makes for foolproof fitment of each part as they will only fit together in one possible way. This greatly reduces the amount of welding and grinding time required by you and makes for a cleaner finished product. If you are paying to have the bumper assembled by a welding shop, this significantly lowers the cost!
We finished this bumper off with optional single and dual swing out carriers, a high clearance hitch receiver, LED pod lights to go on top of the bumper or swing outs (sorry, this bumper is way too low profile to fit lights inside of it!), and heavy duty 9/16" recovery points that are placed directly in line with the Toyota 4Runner frame to eliminate any leveraging effects. These recovery points are formed out of laser cut steel plates that pass through the CNC-cut slots in the rectangular tubing center and tie directly into the bumper's main mounting points on the 4Runner frame. The recovery points then get welded to the in and outside of the rectangular tubing center, made possible by a 5-axis CNC laser tube cutter. These factors all combine to form recovery points that minimize stress on your Toyota 4Runner's frame and provide reliable recoveries of heavily loaded vehicles in the worst of offroad situations. What could make this bumper even better? The low profile design has resulted in a very reasonable weight of 91lbs! Considering that this bumper replaces your factory bumper, hitch receiver and associated components, the resulting weight increase to your Toyota 4Runner is surprisingly minimal. In fact, we weighed all of the factory rear bumper and hitch receiver components and found they added up to a total of 83lbs! This means that our heavy duty bumper only increases your 4Runner's weight by 8lbs, a totally negligible increase. This reduces added stress on your vehicle, maintains precious payload capacity, and allows you to keep your factory suspension if desired.
The swing out tire carrier comes in either a single or dual sided configuration and is 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, 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.
