Offroad-Express

Another bastard hook mounting (for the books Moriarty you still stand as the most difficult )
Right this is the De-Ranged option to fit hooks onto the front of a 5 door Escudo, what we were looking at is this toy opps daily driver is gona get alot of work very soon but Weemsy wanted to take it out for a few club runs before the mods start getting serious so he needed hooks and not wanting to have to blow them off later when we do the bar work we decided to mount them properly now
This is what we had to start with ... sweet F all, oh and to make it more fun the local club rules state hooks must be mounted "up"

The hole is the where the factory mount once sat the chassi is the lower part coming down to the X member the upper part is a horn to mount the bumper off and the welds between the two arn't that flash These hooks take a massive force when snatched and the last thing you want is anything to snap and go flying very real potential to kill someone so I decided to reinforce the area....

thats 5mm plate and it crosses the horn to the chassi and is welded to between chassi and X member

theres the mount in place 75x100 angle with a 10mm wall and fully welded down

Weemsy wanted this one in... this was one of the easyer welds some of the the offhand right at the bottom down near the radiator I was struggling to see
And the finished setup


When the new tube bumper goes on it will clear the hooks just keeping it all legal
but in the mean time he needed the original bumper so the plan was to do a little trimming
Before

the inside trimming to fit over the hooks

and the finished look



Right time to head to the shed, and do the rear bumper

WHAT, It's not bright yellow

Nice job 3 door escudos are easyer to do tow hooks than the 5 door .Looking forward to seeing ya new bumper.

why is it specified that hooks are supposed to face up
personally i am not a great fan of the idea because if you are stuck in a ditch facing down then when you are getting pulled out the force will be on the end of the hook i.e the weaker part of the hook
so can someone enlighten me

rear hook done today i heard lots of swearing and cursing coming from the back of the truck, so i hid round the front fitting my axle drop brackets now the cv's are on a decent angle again (pics to come)

while i was there i also fitted a spacer block to the rear axle a-frame to keep the ball joint from snapping off or popping out. its increased the articulation at the back a bit too

oh, and dont worry moonhoper.....its not yellow YET it will be once the bars are on and we dont have to go in again and scratch the paint!!!!

weemsy

mercutio wrote:why is it specified that hooks are supposed to face up
personally i am not a great fan of the idea because if you are stuck in a ditch facing down then when you are getting pulled out the force will be on the end of the hook i.e the weaker part of the hook
so can someone enlighten me

Based on seeing rules like this implemented in other clubs (and an assosiation ) I would have to say well meaning politics I agree with you fully its stupid... I got told the other day one of the local clubs won't allow shackles becouse they break and its not like the wll or swl is cast into the side of them... which brings up an interesting question is the 10000lb stamped on these hooks a breaking strain or a Safe Working Load, there's a big difference
but anyway
The rear hook
Just as many options as the front

First off to go is the stupid tiedown eye.... oh just as a side note to people out there Weemsy was telling me he has a link to some clown who welded a plate to this and bolted his hook ontop alright its a booty piece of bar but those welds are crap and its only welded to a piece of 3mm sheet that in places due to undercut on the welds was only 2mm thick.
After a bit of discussion Weemsy wanted a whole new X member with the hook in the middle, hmmm not untill the tank goes up and I can brace up the chassi to stop it bending so this is what we've done in the mean time...
so onto the side of the chassi... now due to leverage becouse the hook is outside from the chassi its ment I needed to plate down the chassi a bit more than that cab mount would allow no worries I've got plasma

the side of the cab mount was slotted and welded back down to the reinforcing plate

And just becouse I can we are going with a double shear mount using 6mm wall angle

there we go an't she prurddy
Now we are workign to the same deal as the front.... when we have the body lift in and the bigger wheels on the bar work will be done ( and yes it will be bright yellow ) so the original bumper got a bit of a trim
Oh heres a hot shot.... and trust me it was hot!! I'm cutting the steel sheet out of the bumper

and the end result

loppee wrote:Nice job 3 door escudos are easyer to do tow hooks than the 5 door .Looking forward to seeing ya new bumper.

Got pics of the three door job? Got to do that to mine soon and have no idea how to do it (okay thats not quite right, I have seen a few options but am still looking for the one to suit me).

First off to go is the stupid tiedown eye.... oh just as a side note to people out there Weemsy was telling me he has a link to some clown who welded a plate to this and bolted his hook ontop alright its a booty piece of bar but those welds are crap and its only welded to a piece of 3mm sheet that in places due to undercut on the welds was only 2mm thick.

Must have seen mine. Not done by me I add hastly, but was on it when it arrived (wont be for long) also had wrong bolts (10mm - nasty).