When building my front bumper, as shown here, I failed to go the extra step and add the look and versatility of d-rings. When I went about building another front bumper, this time for a fellow Rough Rider, Andrew, I went the extra mile and added d-ring provisions.

I've seen many mounting options including plates that bolted to the face of the bumper, c-shaped mounts that fitted over the rectangle tubing and used the existing bumper mounting holes as well as cutting holes through both the front and back of the square tubing and welding in some thick bar stock. The first method did not seem very strong and I did not like the look of the second method. So, although it is the most difficult option, I went with the method of cutting square holes through the bumper and inserting some bar stock and welding at both ends.

Since my bumpers are made of 54" long 2"x4"x1/4" steel rectangular tubing, they are already heavy. So, although the D-rings I purchased could have used a 3/4" or so thick piece of bar stock, I decided to use 5/8" x 2" cold rolled bar stock.

For the D-rings, I purchased two of Warn's 16,000 lb clevis rings (d-rings).

I wanted to position the d-rings just inside the mounting brackets, so the center of the bar stock is roughly 14" from the ends of the bumper versus roughly 11" from the mounting bracket to the end of the bumper.

Since I don't own a plasma cutter or other fancy cutting tool, I was forced to make due with a drill press, reciprocating saw and a Dremel. Since I was using 5/8" thick bar stock, I first made two holes all of the way through the bumper at both ends of the required 5/8"x 2" hole using a 5/8" drill bit.

I then used my reciprocating saw and cut between the two holes as shown below. This required some thin blades in order to fit in the 5/8" hole.

Next, I used the Dremel and some diamond covered bits and finished off the corners as shown below.

And here's the final slot. The slot goes all of the way through the bumper, but I blocked the other side in order for the picture to come out better.

This was quite time consuming, but it was well worth it. I kept grinding until I could fit the bar stock through the holes.

Up next, I inserted the bar stock into the holes and measured where the hole for the d-ring needed to be. I wanted the d-ring as close to the bumper as possible. I then cut the bar stock to that desired length using the reciprocating saw.

Once that was done, I used a 7/8" drill bit to put a hole in the end of the bar stock. (This was the diameter of the d-ring that I had chosen.) I then polished everything up with my grinder. Here what it looked like:

Next, I inserted the bar stock into the holes and welded it in front and in back. This is what gives it maximum strength.

Finally, I loaded up the bumper with some paint and bolted on the d-rings.

The entire process of building the bumper, d-ring mounts and mounting brackets along with all prep took about 20 hours and $90. ($40 for the d-rings and $50 for the steel.)

But, you end up with one sweet setup. More info on the bumper and mounting brackets can be found here.

UPDATE!!!

I decided I liked the D-rings on Andrew's bumper so much, I went ahead and not only added two to my front bumper, but added one to the rear. Here are the pics!