Heavy duty brush guard for VX

[Jorge]

Hello VX'ers,

My brother Art and I along with the rest of our team continue frantically turning our 1999 Ironman VX into a robot, trying to beat the clock :-) I have a question for y'all... If you wanted to get a heavy duty brush guard for a VX, where would you go? A couple of months back my brother Art and I saw a nice custom safari bar advertised somewhere (I forget exactly where, but I could probably find it in my inbox). That bar looked nice, but it was smaller than what we need. We are currently looking for a heavy duty guard that will wrap around headlights, and will have two large "push" guards up front (some people call these "push" guards since they are heavier duty than brush guards). QUESTION: Where can we buy one of these heavy duty guards? Will a Trooper guard fit (sorta, kinda) with some hacking and welding?

Thanks,

Jorge

[mbeach]

You will most likely need to drop the VX off to a custom fabricator. I've been through a few different brushguard/lightbar designs already, and have ended up scraping a fair amount of tubing because I didn't like the way things were looking.
My stuff won't be nearly as substantial as what you're looking for, but I'm focusing heavily on the look. The VX has a difficult profile to match properly, and I don't think that any off-the-shelf bar will just bolt on without looking out of place.

I found a lot of inspiration in the forums' gallery. There's a couple of owners that have replaced their bumper tube with some 2" square stock, and that seems to be the smart way to start -because now you have something hefty to bolt up to.

[Ldub]

There is a bar on Tone Monday's site, that may be a starting point that you could add to. (weld on whatever configuration to the basic bar Tone offers)

[AREA 51]

You'll need a custom fabbed bar. I'd suggest checking out green dragon's gallery pics.

[Tone]

I find it a little odd that these guys building this are here in Austin and have yet to contact me nor responded to any emails I have sent them. VXKing?

[Jorge]

I find it a little odd that these guys building this are here in Austin and have yet to contact me nor responded to any emails I have sent them. VXKing?

Hello,

Cool... I was wondering if there were some other members of VehiCROSS.info here in Austin. I guess there are... Sorry if I haven't had time to peruse all the photo galleries, etc. to see who is in Austin and who isn't. Would be glad to show you our robot sometime... Send me an email and we'd be glad to show you what we've done... send me an email to "my first name" followed by the "at" sign, followed by the town we live in, which is "austin" followed by what we are building, which is a "robot", followed by a period, followed by the first three letters of the word "commercial". It's a bummer, but ever since we published our address in some online resources we've been getting hit by spam... that's the sad reality of the online world.

Thanks,

Jorge

[Jorge]

Hello mbeach,

Thanks for the ideas and the detailed email... I did check out some of the photos in the member's gallery for inspiration. Keewwll!

Hello Area 51,

I checked out Green Dragon's gallery pics! Wow... I like Hell's Gate... holy crap!

Thanks,

Jorge

[Moncha]

Hell's gate was great! I did the first part of the obstacle bone stock!! The second part, where you see Bob coming back up, I may try again if i'm in the area again this year.. The only reason I didn;t last year was for fear of breaking a bead on the tires... The VX is Awesome!! Even stock!

[Scott Harness]

Jorge,if you don't find anybody in the Austin area. Outlaw Customs in Grapevine,Tx (next to DFW airport) just made me some sweet rock sliders. They look fantastic. They look like they are factory. Fit the look of the vehicle. I bet they could do a great job.Phone# 817-416-1355 ask for James. Actually I was thinking of doing the same thing.

[Scott Harness]

Forgot to give web address www.outlawcustoms.us

[Triathlete]

Scott,
Show us some pics of those bad boys!

[Scott Harness]

Sorry no digital camera ,I'll ask a neighbor. You can see them in Moab though.

[Triathlete]

I'll be there! :naughty:

[JAFO]

http://www.vehicross.info/gallery/data/515/medium/VX_Brushguard_concept.jpg

Here is a concept that was created by a member for the www.TrailReady.com group buy a couple years ago. They needed 20 prepurchases before they would fabricate the prototype. Unfortunetly at the time there were not enough participants.

http://www.vehicross.info/gallery/data/515/VX_Brushguard_concept_without_corner_guards.jpg

Also it was thought that the lower corner guards could be removable/optional. Also this second drawing show a second suport bar going up to the bottom of the headlight guards.

Original thread: http://www.vehicross.info/forums/showthread.php?t=429&highlight=group+buy

I for one would be interested if anyone would like to revisit this idea.

(Double post: I also posted this on another similiar recent thread http://www.vehicross.info/forums/showthread.php?threadid=6818)

[mbeach]

I helped a friend install TrailReady's front and rear bumpers on his ZJ 4 years ago. Their stuff is super well built and has great, aggressive styling. It's also incredibly HEAVY, but I suppose that's the price you pay for having something so burly.

There's a few companies working in aluminum now, I wonder if that'll catch on.