front bumper
here is an idea for what customization can be done. i didn't
like the way this design was going so i took it apart and
went for a simpler addition to my front bumper.
while you have your front end off for modifications, it's a good idea to weld the bumper mount brackets on the shock towers. it's easier than doing it with it still on the car.
while you've got your welder out, make a few light mounting tabs and weld them on. like 2" X 3" pieces of 3/16" steel, something like that.
the skid plate could be welded on or bolted to the bumper. like 1/16" steel or something like that, it doesn't have to be really heavy stuff. might also extend it underneath the lower torsion tube so "stuff" would slide under the tube instead of hitting it full force. skid plate should be as wide as the beam so it protects all of it, not just the center section.
now consider fabricating some sort of brush guard to protect the lights. might be helpful if you had access to a pipe bender, you could get really funky with a custom design or maybe something resembling those Hummer brush guards.
i'm considering a pipe bender, then i could make my own roll bars too. think about it a $100 roll bar or a $100 pipe bender? i think the pipe bender could pay for itself, my welder has almost paid for itself, not just in making my car better, but in work that i've done on other people's cars.
side bumpers
side bars, rally bars, nerf bars, t-bone bars, tree bars, whatever you want to call them, are really pretty useful. the ready made ones that i have seen look pretty flimsy to me though, a better bet would be to make some yourself. mine are entirely home made out of 1 and 1.5 inch steel tubing. they are so strong that i can use them as a jacking point for my high-lift jack. the other function that they serve is to allow me to get really close to trees without hooking a rear fender/tire on the tree. when you are on an off camber trail and need to cut it close to a tree, it's nice when you can simply slide past it and not get wedged up aganst it. the tree bars are also a good place to mount some side lights, something small so they don't get hit by the tree that you are scraping by.
rear bumper
the only rear bumpers i've seen for sale these days is the heavy duty kind with the extra tubes that protect the sides of the engine. that's just at my local vw acessory store, i haven't seen any hot vws mags for a while. anyway, the bumpers in theory mount to the lower rear tranny mount bolts and to the upper rear shock towers. the thing with the shock tower mounting is that the upper bumper tubes are not long enough to reach al the way back to the shock bolts. this is because the bumper is designed to fit with all sorts of exausts, glass packs and quite packs, etc. if you are running a stinger set up, you may have noticed that your bumper could be moved forward, toward the engine about 2 or 3 inches. i cut 2.5 inches off of the lower tubes, thus shortening the car 2.5 inches, increasing the departure angle, and moving the upper tubes 2.5 inches closer to the shock bolts. so now i have it mounted to the shock bolts and welded the shock bolt mounting piece to the bumper. this is better than just having it mounted to the body with a few long bolts.
you can get some trailer tail lights to mount on tabs that you weld to the bumper so to get weight off of the fenders. you should also get some proper reverse lights on there too.
if you feel that your bumper is strong enough to handle some weight, consider fabricating some mounts for a high-lift jack. that damn jack is a pain to deal with inside the car. so is the spare tire for that matter. i'm considering making a spare tire carrier on the rear bumper and a high-lift jack carrier on the front bumper/brush guard.
make your own skid plate, the premade ones are expensive crap. bolt it to the bumper/engine cage and to tabs that you make and weld to the rear frame horns. i hope you know better than to bolt it to the engine case, like the instalation instructions on the premade ones might have you do. make sure the plate covers the whole tranny and engine, to the valve covers, you don't want a rock to take out your push rod tubes. i have a few small dents in mine, hmm.... also, make sure it doesn't interfer with the drivelines.
