Future grille guard thoughts?

[02RangerXLT]

Howdy all,
I have a friend who has kindly offered to help me build a grille guard because we have a healthy crop of deer around us and I don't want to wreck a front end because of the damn things. I put it in this section because it wasn't a full bumper build, just a grille guard. Thanks.

So I started off by looking at some push bars, and modifying them to my liking, heres what I have come up with to start with (Thanks to wickerham @ RPS, for adding the bottom bar):

I think I will take those two bottom bars, and extend them so that they are the length of my whole bumper, and then weld them both together at the ends...

Anyone have thoughts or comments on this? Anyone who has pictures of their STOCK grille guards, please post them. Thanks!

 

[lil_Blue_Ford]

I've thought about this sort of thing before since I've somehow managed to smash up my grill a couple times on my Ranger. The problem is, the headlights and grill are mounted to a fiberglass panel that runs across the whole front of the truck, so if that panel gets damaged, you have to replace the whole thing.

And that pushbar design will not stop a deer from managing to smash that panel, unfortunately. I've been thinking of custom building a bumper with a stinger for mine so it looks prerunner style in hopes that it would help deflect the deer away from the expensive parts should I hit one.

Or you could do a grill guard like drawn and put some small crossbars in the middle and wings for protecting the headlights.

 

[daniel3507]

I would for sure put something going across the headlights and everything. Ive never seen an encounter with a deer where it was just the grill messed up

 

[02RangerXLT]

I know, the push bar is just the base for it... like I said above, I would like to extend the bottom two bars so that they span the whole width of my bumper, as far as covering the lights, do plan on doing that also.

@Little Blue Ford-- Do you have any pics of this fiberglass panel, or could you point it out?

Thanks!

 

[lil_Blue_Ford]

Pop the hood and take a look... it's the colormatched panel that cups both headlight assemblies and holds the grill in... I'll have to see if I have a pic of it somewhere. To get one from LMC truck is around a hundred bones.

 

[02RangerXLT]

Pop the hood and take a look... it's the colormatched panel that cups both headlight assemblies and holds the grill in... I'll have to see if I have a pic of it somewhere. To get one from LMC truck is around a hundred bones.

Yeah. I think if I have the two bottom bars go the whole width of the bumper it will be a pretty strong deer guard. Any suggestions on material sizes to use?