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Jury Riggers Unite!
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Heh, I had a ’67 VW Beetle in the mid 70s with RailRoad Ties as front and rear bumpers. I bought it for $75 at a garage sale.
i not only had a wooden (front) bumper — i also had a wooden grill. 2x4s screwed together with sheetrock screws, then lag-bolted from inside the engine compartment, with hardware cloth screwed to the front to stop large objects from bashing my newly-re-cored radiator. The hood was held down by parachute cord lashed around a coat hook mounted to the front with bolts. The wooden grillwork wouldn’t fit so that it cleared the headlights, so my dad went slice-by-slice with his radial arm saw to make cutouts for the headlights. Later i replaced the wooden bumper with an old chrome pipe and screwed some old hunks of metal over the hardware cloth for added protection.
As a result of the same accident, the left front quarter of the space frame (i.e., the engine compartment) was weak. So I bolted some old oak flooring pieces inside the engine compartment to strengthen it.
eminently sensible and practical
Its an upgrade
That’s got better energy absorption properties than the steel original. Cover it in duct tape and it’s the perfect bumper.
I have seen something similar in a front bumper in Miami. If i see it again, ill post it. Classic.
I’ve seen *so* many of those in New England that I don’t even think about it. Most of them were on older Toyota pickups too. Hell, half the ‘yota trucks of that vintage that I’ve seen had wooden beds built with varying degrees of skill.
Now I wish I had pics of “Old Blue”, the ’86 Hi-lux my folks just got rid of. Wooden tailgate held to the wooden bed with door hinges, a 2×8 for a rear bumper with the license plate held on by wood screws… FAR better than this thing!
And in Central Florida.
@jerv – heh! i was that far [holds up fingers one imaginary violin-width apart] from building a wooden bed onto an old isuzu P’up that i loved — bed was rotting away but the frame and cab were fine, and the engine was like a clock. but i stumbled on an 87 volvo for a good price, and sold the pickup to a guy who wanted to drive it cross-country to arkansas. i figured it would usefully live out its old age there.
I loved my old Toyota truck. But they don’t make the best bumpers for those things. The fact is, that wooden bumper would out live an original bumper for one of those, is sad but true.
My husband is going to love this site. We routinely chuckle at mishaps like this (as if we’ve never done something equally dumb…).
My old toyota came without a bumper, so I too made a wooden one for it. In the end, I think I went through 3 of them…. did I mention my toyota was lacking a rear view mirror?
I wished I took a picture years ago of a carpenter’s car. His early 70′s Buick LeSable got rear ended, so he rebuilt a whole back part of his car of wood. It looked pretty funny, but was fuctional and never caught fire.
OMG – I’m ashamed to say I know the man who owns that truck.
hahaha thats pretty funny u know the person who drives that truck
I WOOD-ent believe it if I hadn’t seen it myself!
That’s not an uncommon fix on Michigan work and farm trucks.
See that all the time, seen one guy tow with such an arrangment
Looks like a piece of a pallet. Of course, that wood work.
Well…. thats what they get for buying a TOYOTA!
ZING!