Raising the bar, Mighty Mav

Silver is a Mav and wears the alloy bar that many of them seem to have from factory.

The cow catcher bar at the bottom has copped a bit of a pounding.

Since the front has gone up a couple of inches due to a spring swap, I finally got motivated to do something about it, and made arrangements with Bigrig and Macca86 to use Bigrig's space, and Macca86's welding skills.

As fitted, the bar could go up 36mm before hitting any sheet metal. We chose 30mm to allow some clearance.

The bar is mounted to two large steel ts, that are bolted to the chassis rails, and to a pad inside the main hori2ontal part of the bar - one each side.

the vertical part of the t was cut from top of the T, moved down 30mm and welded back on.

The bar and brackets went back in perfectly - and exactly in the planned location.

Bigrig, Benny Boy, thanks for getting into it with suggestions and grinders, and spanners in and out. Macca86, thanks for your advice and for those beautiful welds. Dhuck thanks for the words of encouragement and for sharing some father's day beef jerky. Yum.

I'm really grateful for all you did today A credit to yourselves, and a very positive reflection of what this forum is all about. You meet the best people here :-)

Thanks again,

Rick (PS, loverly wife very impressed, too :clapping:)

I don't suppose you took a pic or three?

No, I did intend to, and even took the camera, thinking I'd have plenty of time plodding along by myself for most of the job.

I know people can pick up a lot more from a photo than from text. It isn't really the most photogenic of projects either - except for some arty shots of grinder sparks etc.

I am a bit slow on my feet at the moment, and the boys just kinda stepped in and I didn't want to get in the way, or slow down more in my spanner selection and handling duties :-).

The tips I can pass on are:

the usual measure twice at least at cut once. The chassis ends were there to check distances etc, as well as the original location of the leg of the T piece.

Tack and then check to see if it will bolt up. The leg of the t piece is tapped to take the bolts.

I understand the welds were triple fillets courtesy of a MIG and an expert hand and eye.

The original factory welds were such that even I would have been embarrased to have made them. One side was significantly under cut, and the other was uneven with some reasonably significant low spots etc. In saying all that, they have been there since 89, and all they do is hold up the alloy bar, the fishin' rods, and a couple of lights. Hopefully there is enough in the bar to fend off a reasonable roo. The one thing that is a bit more serious is that I made up a light weight removable tow bar that is braced around/through the main part of the bar and sits underneath. the towball load from the tinny trailer is pretty low - it is a well set up trailer under a 4.3m pointy punt. the plan is low speed manouvering into the garage. I wouldn't use it to move a caravan.

The bar has no recovery function - all that is down below on the chassis rails - Outback Ideas gear, on both rails, and no more factory hook.

Anytime Rick now hopefully you don't hit any thing I know the bloke that welded it if you look at it sideways it might fall off. Those factory welds were a joke one undercut about 2 mm deep all the way and one skinny shakey what should have been 6mm fillet was more like 4mm at best. Due to moving backers we lost some area to weld on so 12mm 3 run fillet should do it.

Too easy mate - was good to have a reason to catch up!!

Get some pics up of the car with this mod and the lift when you can Rick, looking forward to seeing what it looks like