Been doing a R/H/S rocker panel, step and wheel arch on a 04 Ford Transit van for a customer, started Friday morning and by 2.00pm ish I'd run out of MIG gas so off to get another gas cylinder, It's a bit tight on our drive at the moment due to small plant, trailers, 2 Rams, piles of logs etc and while reversing and turning hard to get out of our gates I just caught a wall, took a very quick look out of the side window and no scrapes on the wall so off I go.

The gas supplier I use is about 6 miles away and after about a mile I heard something, I assumed it was the 2 gas cylinders in the bed which were ratcheted to my 5th wheel rails moving around so I pulled over once I found somewhere which was about another 1/2 mile further on after a left turn.

 

Anyway I got the gas and got home not once going around the front of the truck until home....... bumper (front fender) looked different...... no top pad, pad is gone, totally ripped of leaving all the mounting tags still in the bumper, had to get on with the ford so once it got too dark I came in and checked online for pads or custom bumper plans

 

Went for breakfast at a all you can eat full english  at a pub this morning..... same route for the first 3 miles, low and behold there is my pad propped up against a dry stone wall with a piece of cardboard sat in front of it with yesterdays date and a time on it with my reg number.

 

I must have run over it, no damage though other than no mounting tags ( I'll bolt it to the bumper) whoever pulled it out of the road has saved me a lot of ££

Also on the plus side I changed gas suppliers and went with my supplier that I use for oxy acetylene so took the old cylinder back to my old supplier and got £102 refund on the cylinder

Like the thought of a custom bumper though but would need to make it myself as shipping  

Yeah Dodge bumpers suck for design. They look good when new but after years of sun and use the plastic tend to fall off the bumper after awhile. 

7 minutes ago, Mopar1973Man said:

Yeah Dodge bumpers suck for design. They look good when new but after years of sun and use the plastic tend to fall off the bumper after awhile. 

I'm a member of a neighbour website for where I live and the next village I'll be posting a thank you and hopefully whoever it was pulled it out of the road reads it 

1 hour ago, wil440 said:

I'm a member of a neighbour website for where I live and the next village

Curious, would you share the URL please?

Yes it's www.nextdoor.co.uk   but I've tried to use the site this morning and I have to say it is garbage, I'd only ever visited a few times but decided to set up a business page, kept autofilling the wrong address so I spat the dummy and deleted my account

You have the same just .com

Kind of why I prefer sport bumpers, god awful expensive though.. glad someone was there to get it out of the road for you. 

4 minutes ago, Silverwolf2691 said:

Kind of why I prefer sport bumpers, god awful expensive though.. glad someone was there to get it out of the road for you. 

Yes someone did me a big favour, where it was there are quite a few allotments, these are areas of local council ground that is leased to people to grow food this is rather big in the UK and I'll bet it was someone who was there or going to/from there or just a dog walker as not much else around

I hated the way those plastic bits would fade to gray over time.  When I still had my OEM bumper I coated the plastics with roll on bed liner, made it look a lot better.  

 

 

I know what you mean about the plastic fading to a grey but at the moment on my truck it doesn't matter as being a work truck only the rain cleans it so the grey plastic melts in with the quarry mud

I'm determined to put up a big workshop this year so 3500 first then 2500 for some much needed work on both

Finally got around to refitting the top pad, none of the plastic clips survived so just drilled it at every clip and bolted it on, the thing won't fall off again as the only bolts I had that wouldn't have needed massive body washers behinds the bumper were 10mm Cat bolts, the best thing about these nuts/bolts is they will come undone even after years 

Photos?

On 1/25/2022 at 2:43 PM, Sycostang67 said:

I hated the way those plastic bits would fade to gray over time.  When I still had my OEM bumper I coated the plastics with roll on bed liner, made it look a lot better.  

 

 

 Thanks for posting that pic, I've been wondering what one would look like with the plastics all black. Now I know. I like it!