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*Lightweight* Harley Truck FG Front Bumpers!!! ***Limited Offering*** $375

11K views 55 replies 21 participants last post by  SBL03 
#1 ·
Okay guys, here's your opportunity to have a lightweight front bumper on a HD!

I had Joe Gambino of Precision Fabrication build me a fiberglass replacement upper bumper for my HD truck. Now that the mold is built, making more is the easy part. For guys who want the weight savings but not the cost of switching to a L front end, or that want to keep the unique look of the HD front end, here's your opportunity.


HD bumper vs L bumper
The HD factory bumper is 3 pieces, a steel center section, a plastic top pad, and a plastic lower valance. So HD guys can't just ditch the metal like L guys can with a full bumper cover. Joe made me the metal piece and top plastic pad from 1 solid FG piece. So not only is it light, with the top 2 pieces now 1, it's less seams for a cleaner look, yet if you scrape with the bottom still being OEM plastic valance, you won't trash it either like a full FG bumper.


Install
Just like the L-bumper mod, the bumper bolts to the grille shell, and 2 simple brackets are fabbed for the lower corners. THe entire front end can come off in 2 minutes for wrenching and not worrying about scratching the paint or leaning way over the front. THere's molded in indents for where the holes go for the foglights and lower valance, so its literally just popping a few holes where the indents were, and the lower valance bolts right up. The fogs will also bolt right up.

weight savings
Bumper alone, shed 20 lbs. Bumper brackets are around another ~10 lbs. Frame horns can also be cut back to the core support for another 20 lbs, or cut back to the a-arms if you have a power rack for 40 lbs. So weight savings are anywhere from 30 to 70 lbs depending how far you want to go, which off the front end is HUGE!

Quality
Quality is insane. I've had TONS of cf and fg parts over the years, and this was hands down the best fitting piece I've ever had. No warping, no waviness, no pits or lumps, it's frigging dead nutz on! My OEM bumper was used as the mold, so it's perfect, and this is not something made overseas, or even made here but by some illegal working in a sweat shop lol. Gambino makes these himself, and you guys see from the pics, the fit and finish is spot on. He lets them cure in the mold for several days to eliminate any chances of warping, with them being low volume, you get that extra attention to detail vs. a mass produced piece.

Cost
$375, which IMO is an insane price for a hand made, exact fit, top quality, ultra-light weight bumper! Even with shipping, which won't be cheap, it's still a great deal. Now's the time to grab one. Once the mod goes into storage or tossed, it's going to be near impossible to get them done again. Joe isn't just in the fiberglass bumper business, he's in the racecar business, his wait list is a year long to get in there and he does everything under the sun racecar, so when opportunity knocks, you gotta jump at it. So if you want one, you gotta jump on the opportunity while this mold is still on the stand and grab one if you want it before it's too late!

If anyone wants one, shoot me an PM and I'll send you Joe's #. Trying to get a list so he can know how much material to order, and can pop them all out back to back before packing the mold in storage.
 

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#2 ·
In for one
 
#4 ·
Without the bumper brackets, how do you mount the bumper using the horns?
You bolt the bumper to the grille shell surround similar to what the L guys do, eliminating the bumper brackets.

It makes the whole front end a single piece bolt on kit, making it easy to R&R in just a few minutes. :smt023

I'd be all over this if I had an HD, $375 is super cheap for a custom non-mass produced part! :hyper
 

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#5 ·
yep as sick said, it bolts to the grille shell. There's already several holes on each side of the grille shell, you just need to drill a few more in the middle. It's all hidden when mounted up. Then the bottom 2 corners can be stiffened up with a couple aluminum brackets from flat stock from home depot.

I've got 6 people on the list. If anyone else wants one let me know so I can get your contact info to Joe. He'll probably only do 1 run of these before packing the mold away into storage.
 
#7 ·
he runs a L bumper....but he should switch back to the home team and run a HD bumper on that HD truck! (and run a 10 to match those 10 sec vanity tags! lol)
 
#8 ·
its coming together my truck is running decent right now after new 3.4 install still need or want a new trans. Im going to make some test hits Thursday night at the 1/8 mile near my house if I can get some C116 down to 2 gallons of 93 in the tank. I will get my 10 this fall or run away and hide ha ha
 
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#10 ·
haha hope to see you get it man, you deserve it that truck has been a strong runner for the HD trucks for a long time. Hope you make it up to Spookfest this year!

Good chatting with you, Josh. Looking forward to getting this bumper.
You too, I'm updating the list for Joe on these today. We've got 8 on the list so far! For a rare part like this (as in not a ton of HD guys going after weight reduction and buying one, although for appearance it's worthy too IMO for ditching the bumper gap and shaving 1 of the 2 bumper seams), it's a good sign there's this much interest. It's really helping convince Joe to make us CF tailgates next. :bolt
 
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#12 ·
lol believe me I'd like to keep it. I'm a year out from moving though, so I won't have any space for it till after that point, so we'll see if it can tie up space at Joe's until then. With 8 bumpers pending, that'll keep it active on the shop floor for about 2 months figuring about 1 bumper a week. If guys keep them trickling in, we can keep this rolling for the mean time.

Update for guys following who want one, Joe went today to buy more materials to start building them. If anyone wants one, send me your name, email, cell #, and shipping addy, and your timeline. Trying to shuffle guys who are in a rush for one ahead of guys who aren't in a rush, just to try and make things work out best for all.
 
#16 ·
yeah but then I gotta lug it down to you LOL. We'll see, if Joe can keep it in the shop till the fall, then I'll bring it with me to SF to pass off if you can hang onto it till next summer when we plan to move.


I'll gladly store it and give it back to you once you have a bigger place. I have an insane amount of storage.
LOL then it's gotta go even further, the mold is even bigger and WAY heavier than the bumpers to ship haha. I would entertain selling the mold if someone was interested in buying it after this run of them is done.

Please correct me.... But is this an option? CF?
sick snagged a very rare CF grille surround. His is actually the only one I've ever seen. THe bummer is that I don't believe stock grilles will work in it.
 
#19 ·
I sent you a pm.

Let me know how to pay.

Also, I liked the lower piece.

Please let me know

Tony
 
#20 ·
PM replied Tony.

Joe said he started on them yesterday. Emailed everyone about deposits. Going to swing by today to find out more details for you guys.

We're at 10, possibly 11 so far. More than I expected!
 
#21 ·
Have him make Lightning side skirts!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Jim
 
#22 ·
L side skirts already exist. Yes they're hard to find, but again, with limited time and limited resources, parts that already exist but just hard to find aren't on the radar to build. It takes a metric shit ton of work to build molds for this stuff. Gotta make the choices wisely on what parts to have made....because he can't make everything we want. Need to be selective.

This one for HD bumpers being a not highly desired item took a couple grand on my own part to fund the kickoff of it to even make it worth the time to have Joe build them, these others for $375 are a STEAL.

The next items in the queue are smooth wiperless wiper cowls, and then following that carbon fiber tailgates. Those two things probably put the next open spot for something else 6+ months out, once we get through those, then we can see what folks want next and see if Joe's up for it.
 
#23 ·
L side skirts already exist. Yes they're hard to find, but again, with limited time and limited resources, parts that already exist but just hard to find aren't on the radar to build. It takes a metric shit ton of work to build molds for this stuff. Gotta make the choices wisely on what parts to have made....because he can't make everything we want. Need to be selective.
So if these mythical side skirts really exist, someone please provide a link or a vendor.

Jim
 
#26 ·
PM replied


I can still add folks to the list for these if anyone is still interested.

Reminder they're $375 plus shipping. Deposit is $200.
 
#28 ·
Here ya go fellas, they're underway!

The heat was way too hot/humid here for a couple weeks with the last heat wave. It wreaks havoc on trying to lay them up. Joe tried to lay one up towards the tail end of it and there were a couple imperfections from it not wanting to pop from the mold so that one got chucked even though it wasn't all that bad. Joe doesn't want to let them out of his hands unless he's happy with them.

He's got another mold release product that's working really well, and the weather isn't as hot/humid, so he was able to pop one out of the mold yesterday, and was getting ready to lay another one up while I was there.

Here's a pic of the one popped out yesterday. It'll get trimmed today. They've also got some boxes coming this week. With the funky size it's been a PITA trying to locate reasonably priced shipping boxes so they're reaching out to a few options.

Anyway, weather looks half decent for a while, so he's going to focus on trying to pop out more. Only 4 guys have sent their deposits in, so anyone else on the list please send yours in, and anyone else interested send me a PM. Once this initial batch is done, the price is going up. :bigtu
 

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#30 ·
No, the 00-02 valances are still available from ford. Hard to find and pricey, but still out there. The 03 valances are harder to find, but again, they can be found with searching and enough money.

These fg bumpers don't exist anywhere, so that's why we went down the road of getting these made, vs. making something that's already out there.


The batch is rolling now, I'll swing by sometime this week again. This pic is from a week and a half ago, but Joe had about 3 done by that point. He texted me yesterday they did have to order custom boxes, the samples they got in an existing size didn't work out, so as soon as the custom ordered boxes arrive they can start shipping, and get quotes for the rest of the guys waiting on shipping quotes to send a deposit in.
 

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#31 ·
Just went to the shop and picked mine up from Joe. He told me there coming along great and he is looking forward to doing more parts for us in the future. He left some material that needs to be fine trimmed. But he left it there for the guys who are going to get them shipped. Still having boxing issues, just cause he wants even the boxes perfect lol. Can't wait to get this done up and on my truck. Also can not wait to see what he has I store for us in the future
 
#33 ·
I'm going to do a youtube vid on prep/fitup/install for guys. There is about a 1/4" flange left on the bumper on the top, which depending how you mount it, can stay, or can get shaved off, it's all of 30 seconds with a flap wheel to trim it down, and since that area is hidden anyway you don't even need to be OCD about it.

When you're ready Rich I can give you a hand on the fitup, and maybe use your truck for some of the how-to vid.

Joe wants to get into less of the full builds, and into more of the parts side, so that's win-win for us that need more mods! lol

Hey Josh, tell Joe we want Lightning side skirts for expeditions next!

Ordered my Rack and Pinion kit from Joe last week, can't wait to get it in!
haha he could do L skirts for an expy, but you'd probably be looking at $5k+ in molds alone
 
#34 ·
forgot to post the pic of the 2 additional bumpers Joe popped out since my last time there.


So far the GB is at 12 guys, 2 have been picked up from the locals. The focus now is to get the box ordeal ironed out, because all the rest are shipped ones.
 

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#35 ·
One in the back was mine lol. I just missed you yesterday Joe said. The one with the little bit of bondo got a little scratch and he didn't want to send it out needing work. He showed me the one that got screwed up, and that wasn't even that bad. He won't let that one go anyplace but the trash. He told me the same thing though about wanting to get away from the full blown builds and concentrate on smaller projects. He had what 6-8 cars in the shop getting worked on, and he is a one man show! Problem is, he is such a perfectionist that having anyone else in there doing work just wouldn't measure up to his standards. Would just wind up redoing it lol.

I definately want help while mocking this up. Going to keep my frame horns, so I'll need to figure out a way to mount the heat exchanger. Thinking of having joe weld tabs onto it that I can bolt to the frame. Also lmk when George is painting your stuff maybe we can get it all done together .
 
#37 ·
I posted this in my refresh thread, but I"ll share it here for the guys doing the bumpers.

With the steel bumper gone with Joe's FG replacement, the lower valance is a little more flexible on the lower corners. Same with the L guys who do their bumper delete mod. They just fab up a bracket for the lower corner from the core support. I'm doing the same with my HD valance, but using quik-latch mini pins to secure it.

Mounted my quik-latch mini's onto the bottom corners of the lower valance. And as nice and clean as the quik latches look, I still prefer hidden over visible, and with them on the bottom curve of the valance, you can't even see them when standing.

I have aluminum brackets that go from the core support to the corners. I need to re-fab them the grade aluminum I was using was too cheap and kept breaking when I was trying to bed them 90*. Lowes garbage. I'll get pics of the brackets when I redo them.

These are nice though because I can fine tune the depth of the quiklatch pin in the bracket to get the bumper alignment perfect on the lower corners.


I also took a vid of my bumper install, in depth of all the details to mock it up and assemble it, as I tore mine apart for paint. So once I get the videos compiled and uploaded I'll send you guys a link so you can see the details for install. It really isn't a hard mod to do, but the vid will point out all the details and tricks and tips to make it even easier. :bigtu
 

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