a simple build
All projects start simple, until they’re not. This one was to just add two driving lights to the Fit because the stock headlights are unfortunate. I could have mounted them somewhere in the bumper but there weren’t any structurally sound places and I wanted to do something unique so I made a mini push bar. I’ve welded a few coped joints and this would just be a few more and add a few bends using the manual pipe bender.
This simple project now involves “designing” a style, welding it, painting it, and wiring it up. Straight forward, just lots of steps and lots of measuring as well as figuring out how complicated or not I wanted to go with the wiring. I decided to tap off of the power going to the headlights to power the relay so that lights would only be used with the headlights on and that I’d hopefully not leave them on. The power for the lights themselves was fused directly from the battery and run through that relay, that was both the power to the lights and the power feeding the relay is protected by a fuse in the likely event of a short circuit. While I did use some higher temperature rated wire going through the firewall, and zip tied everything in place, I know that short circuits always find a way.
Coped joints are always lots of fun but take plenty of effort to cut perfectly. I was using a 1” hole saw on a drill press to cut out a perfect notch on the 1” Chromoly 4135 tubing (0.065” wall). One things I find you can never do enough of it to clean everything enough prior to TIG welding. I was using oil for all of the cutting and washed everything in a Simple Green bath, then cleaned off the joints with acetone, yet still when welding I manage to find some contamination hiding inside of the tube. Better yet was welding the top and bottom tubes and forgetting to drill a small hole to relieve the pressure, without fail it blows out the last part of your weld every time.
The rest was just lots of welding, fitting, looking to see how it looks, and cooking it together. The actual mounts to the car were the most challenging because I didn’t want to take the bumper off and make holes in it, so the mounts come in and meet a 90 degree bracket that screws into the bottom of the thin metal bumper behind the plastic bumper. While I have confidence in my welds, any force at the bottom of the assembly would have a pretty decent moment where the push bar bolts to the car. That said I wasn’t planning on playing bumper cars with this car.
