Carefully inspecting the bumper/light bar/roof rack, I know the bumper with the 16.5 ton winch has to be loosen and tipped down in order for the cab to rotate forward, and that is only if they designed and built the custom bumper correctly. Anything is possible with a custom one-off which this is.
From my inspection I could see some scratches and damage on the headlight and side trims. The left side is most telltale. The damage could occurred during the attempt fitment of the bumper, or subsequently by someone unfamiliar with how it is supposed to work. To determine even if the design/fab was done properly took me days to proceed with abundance of caution. The bumper assembly with the winch weighs more than me and working alone is the challenge.
there are very little gaps between the bumper and the cab everywhere; a wrong move could damage the lights or even the body sheetmetal
knowing to remove these two struts is no-brainer
I thought if I remove the winch to lessen the weight would make the investigation infinitely easier
it turned out the winch could not be removed without tilting down the bumper
There are three bolts on each side that fastened to the frame rails. Studying the action carefully I determine the two that are intended to be the pivot points. Loosening the bolts was difficult as they are high strength bolts in tight quarters.
thankfully this two sawhorses are perfect heights when used with some cedar shims
I could use a spotter while I carefully wiggle the bumper to check the clearance during pivoting it down
you can see how tight the tolerance of the sides are
the cab pivoting mechanism
as I don't have experience of the balance of the cab I use a racket strap to restrain it should it violently dip forward
It turns out the cab is well balanced with springs as long as there is no excessive added weight. My main concern is the roof rack and light bar with all the Hella off-road lights.
you can see the lockable door for the cab crawl through
the sawhorse is also perfect height to hold the bumper tipped forward by supporting the bottom of the extra HD tow bracket
From this investigation of the bumper tilting design, this is not something you can do alone on the road without assistance, and with a lot of tools and improvised implements.
I thought I would invest into a spud wrench to alleviate the struggle of aligning the bolt holes
There are a lot of small things to take care of on this rig. Things that had been neglected and from carelessness or ignorance.
I noticed the cable for the driver side mirror has been pulled off at the grommet and to reseat it I had to remove the mirror from the steel arm
to avoid damaging the rubber grommet I used plenty of soap water as lubricant
There is no wrench nor jack that came with the rig for changing a wheel. Further I need to figure out what size are the wheel nuts in mm. I only want to buy a socket for it instead of a whole set due to the big sizes which get quite expensive, until I have a better handle of which set to get. The lug nut torque is about 250 ft lb. I also need to procure a hydraulic bottle jack that can reach about 16" in height and support about 2 tons.
with such big nut you can be off by a mm or two; I determine it is a 31mm socket
the two-stage bottle jack and the 31mm socket I ordered arrived and my measurement was spot on
as the trim pieces for the headlights are slightly marred I found these pair on Ali Express which are very close copy of the genuine ones at fraction of the cost
they are indiscernible from the real things
also what is missing is the fairlead for the Warn winch so I procured a replacement
the truck has four of these insulated glass windows by Outbound from the Netherlands as well as a skylight which also serves as the access to the roof of the habitat box
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