Its definately going to look sweet Grippy cant wait to see the finished product. Now you just need to get those damn mirrors painted and get some escalade handles and you will ahve the nice color theme going.

 

Thanks bro. Not sure if I like the escalade door handles or the full painted door handles, leaning toward full color matched style.

 

Veterans Day, will start tomorrow

 

comparison photo between the stack of washers method vs. billet aluminum method:

 

It's coming along great Grippy!!! I like those spacers. I think that if you color-match your grille, mirror caps, and door handles; it'll complete the look. Looking Awesome!

 

The spacers look great, when are you going to bring it by so I can see it.

 

Update:

cleaned the brackets up with my die grinder and some scotchbrite. Painted them with a good industrial Gloss Black paint(read: whatever I had on the shelf). You can see in the picture where I cut the bracket for fitment, left a nice radius at the corner to minimize the chance for stress cracks.

 

well, I got the billet spacers, brackets, bumper all bolted up yesterday. I had to drill four new holes to mount the bumper side supports higher up on the frame mount. Everything is rock solid, any doubts I may have had about strength are gone. Another thing I did, recommended by fogle, was tighten up the bumper to body line. The shorter distance looks much cleaner IMO. Now I just need a 1500 bumper cap and bend up some lower bumper brackets and the bumper will be good to go for paint prep

 

should look sweet

 

Since the original owner of the JG bumper didn't take very good care of it I decided to restore it back to original condition before having it painted.
No big deal right? Well not exactly these days. The Joe Gibbs bumper is made out of TPO plastic which has low surface energy. What does that mean? It basically means things don't like to stick to it very well, such as paint, body filler, fiberglass, etc. Apperently TPO plastics, or Olefins, need special attention in every area of repair, prep, and paint. If any step is not done correctly using the right products the bumpers finish will not last.
So what does that mean? It's damn expensive to fix a TPO bumper correctly.

First you need a good surface cleaner, Second you need a good adhesion promoter(you use this constently), then you need an adhesive made specifically for TPO(Olefins) plastics, then you need patch material made to work with the adhesive, lastly you'll need a finishing putty(or paste) again specifically for TPO plastic. If you use traditional fillers, puttys, and repair adhesives(even for other plastics), the repair to the bumper will be incorrect and have substandard durability and finish.

I took some pics of the materials I will be using to repair the bumper. I picked them up at my local Sherman Williams Automotive Paint Supply. BTW, they were very helpful. Total cost with a military discount $120. enjoy