Rear Bumpers and Tire Carriers for Range Rovers

Photo: Range Rover 4.0SE with Bates-designed rear bumper, tire carrier, hi-lift jack and jerry can holder.

Alan Bates of "Rockrover" who designed and produced the front winch bumper and the rock sliders for the P38 Range Rover has now come up with a commercially available rear bumper and tire carrier. As well as being stronger than stock, the bumper is designed to provide increased departure angles, and the option of a swing away tire carrier for easy access to a second spare, or a storage spot for the main spare if you are running big tires. Hi-Lift and jerry can mounts are also available. The bumper uses 3/16" steel with 1/4" mounting brackets, and mounts to the existing rear frame horns. An extra bracket secures the forward sides of the bumper to the sides of the vehicle frame. The bumper is powdercoated a satin black, and has a 5/16" thick 6061 T6 aluminum skid plate.

The rear swing hinge uses roller bearings and a greaseable zerk fitting. A locking compression latch and rubber-lined striker bracket ensure rattle free operation. A pushpin is used as a safety backupto keep the arm in the closed position and as a stop to keep it open in a 90 or 120 degree position. A safety stop pin keeps the arm from doing any damage if it unintentionally swings open.

A Hi-Lift 4XRAC mount and a Con-Ferr jerry can holder can easily be unbolted if desired. Mounting tabs on top of the spare tire upright and Hi-Lift / Jerry Can upright can be used for mounting a CB, GPS, Satellite Radio antenna, etc. The swing arm blocks the stock location of the license plate and cehter brake light, so a lighted license plate holder with an LED third brake light is mounted to the spare tire stud.

Availability & Installation: Email designer Alan Bates for informaiton on obtaining one of these rear bumpers, with or without tire carrier. Alan has kindly offered to help sponsor this site based on the referrals he receives, so please mention you saw his products on Rangerovers.net.

Installation: Installing the bumper involves drilling 4 holes through the frame, but this is very easy to do. Since the bumper design is intended to incrase the rear departure angle, you also need to unbolt the factory hitch. A 2" receiver is built into the new rear bumper for up to Class II trailering and for a recovery loop. However, if you plan on heavy towing, I would strongly advise keeping the stock rear bumper and hitch set-up.

The photos in this section (courtesy of Ron Beckett) show two versions of a custom fabricated swing-away spare tire carrier that mounts to the rear bumper. These were made in Australia by Kaymar. Unfortunately they are not making it available in quantity, but if enough customers contact them you never know!!

Ron Beckett recently obtained one of these for his P38A. His observations were as follows: "The strength of the bar is quite impressive but what is very important is how they have supported the rear bar and the wheel carrier. The bar bolts to the end of each of the chassis rails as is done with the OEM bumper bar. The bar also bolts to the cross member that runs under the wheel well - as per the OEM towbar. But the bar also has two long heavy pieces of right-angle metal that slide down inside the chassis rails and which are bolted both vertically and horizontally to the chassis. From the end of the bar which carries the wheel carrier pivot, there is a support stay back to the chassis - this provides some triangulated support. Also from the ends of the bar are heavy (and strong) cast alloy side plates which replicate the sides of the OEM bumper bar. These plates bolt, via bracketing, under the car to the chassis behind the rear wheel arch."

Custom Rear Bumper by Chris Crompton


Chris's rear bumper showing good departure angle maintained.	Finished rear bumper and tow/recovery point

The images below show Chris's 4.0 with the stock rear bumper removed, and the work performed to provide strong mounting points. Chris comments: "As you can see, I wanted something strong enough to attach a decent tow-hitch to for recoveries. So the first thing I did was remove the old bumper and replace the flimsy crumple bar behind it with a length of box steel, welded onto the chassis rails at either side. This formed the base for the new bumper which I made out of mild steel so I could shape it easily. I also wanted a small amount of crumple in this so if I do hit something it will crumple before the body panels. This was then bolted onto the existing bumper mounts, the chassis rails and the new steel bar. I also wanted a towhitch in the middle of the bumper to make it easy to hook a recovery strap for out in the desert. (I don’t tow anything other than stuck cars, so I didn’t need a proper towball or anything, just something for a snatch strap). So we bolted the tow-hitch directly hrough the bumper to the new box section that replaced the old crumple bar".

After initial testing, Chris welded an extra bracket underneath the back bumper for some additional strength, as his vigorous desert recovery operations managed to bend even his new strengthened bumper!

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Bates rear bumper, tire carrier, Hi Lift and Jerry Can holder	Tire carrier open for access to the rear loadspace


Above Left: The Kaymar custom rear bumper and swingaway tire carrier in the open position on Ron Beckett's 4.6 Range Rover. Note the steel diamond plating on top of the bumper as a non-skid surface to step on. Above Right: Closeup of the carrier mechanism in the open position, showing the hinge. Right: Another custom swingaway spare tire mount (Hardy Neale's Range Rover, Australia)