This project stemmed from following a Mobil tanker truck, and seeing these great looking LED stop lights. I just had to have them. So, after some Internet searching, I found the manufacturer, a contact, and finally I had the lights. These lights are made by Truck Lite.
Of course, they are big, 5 1/2" overall diameter, so that designated the size of the bumper, 2 x 6 x 3/16 steel tubing. With all the fabrication of my Jerry can and tire rack done years ago, I did not want to loose any of that. So I kept all of the orginal rack interfaces and distances. But, the whole assembly moved up a bit over 2".
I cut the steel to a length of 53", positioned and cut the 4 1/2" holes for the lights and made some 1/4" steel spacers with the same 4 1/2" holes in them. Now the lights could fit flush to the bumper. Next I cut 4" lengths of the 2x6 tubing and drilled them to fit the mounting holes on the Jeep. I positioned the tubing to the Jeep and tack welded the tubing in place. Now it was becoming a bumper. Next, I positioned the ends of the bumper to wrap around the corners of the Jeep and tacked them in place. I wanted the bumper to protect the rear of the Jeep from rocks, so I made it about 1" wider than the Jeep on each side, (about 61 1/2" edge to edge). After removing the bumper from the Jeep, I finished welding all the tacks, closed in the ends of the tubing and then notched the bottom center of the bumper and fit in the trailer hitch receiver. I found some 6"-3/16 plate and bent it 90°. I positioned it to fit the center mounting holes in the Jeep bumper area and cut it to size with the plasma cutter. I fitted the bumper to the Jeep one more time and welded the plate in place. Off it came again, to be cleaned up and painted.
The following pictures show the final product.
I did have one interesting problem when I wired the lights in. I found that the flashers and turn signals would not work. As it turns out, these new lights only pull about .75 amps, compared to 2.5 amps from a standard tail light bulb. What this meant was that I needed a heavy duty, electronic plug-in flasher to make it all work.