Upgrading A Golf Cart

[Mennoniteman]

Most bumpers that are available are bed mounted, so even if you get a small tap on the back, the bed will probably be sacrificed, since it's really not made heavy enough to mount a bumper to it.
I found a nice heavy frame mounted steel bumper made by Strongmade, and it just arrived. This bumper has one really neat feature, it is removable, which I like. You can dump the bed or open the tailgate with the bumper on, but you can't do both without taking the bumper off. That's no problem, since I rarely dump things out of the bed, and the bumper easily removes by pulling two pins.
However, there are several other things that I don't like as much, and so I'm already modifying it. But it's winter and I have a heated shop to work in evenings.

 

[Mennoniteman]

Call me strange, but I think I'm going to remove the logo. It's way too big and obvious for where it's located at. The name of the manufacturer of this rig is not Strong Made and I'm also not into doing free advertising for a name I never even heard of.

 

[Mennoniteman]

The mounting brackets seem to be too long for this bumper, the bumper ends up being mounted behind the bed instead of underneath it like I envision that it should be. The bumper mounts way lower than the bottom of the bed, with a gap in between, and that's why it looks tacky protruding out the back. So the first thing I did was cut 1 5/8" off the brackets and redrilled the holes for the retaining pins, and repainted them.

 

[Mennoniteman]

The two 2"x2" square tube mounting brackets go into two frame mounted receivers exactly like a receiver hitch on a pickup truck used to pull a trailer. So I installed the bumper which was actually very easy, then I quickly realized that this bumper was going to rattle over every bump for the next 10 thousand miles (if the rig holds together that long). So I had to remove the bumper again and drill and tap a half inch set screw into each receiver mount. No more rattling. I sure hope someone from this bumper factory reads this. They can have my design work for free.
But now it's bedtime and my bumper still isn't mounted. Which is great, that's cabin fever work for another evening.

 

[Drycreek]

Jack, here’s where you start to putting a bumper on your ride !