I heard that the Calmini bumper did not do too well at GOX. I was really close to ordering one but if it's a pos, then I obviously want to keep looking (probably ARB or TJM). What happened exactly? How severe, etc...?
First hand comments would be great.

There were 4 bumpers there, 2 front, 2 rear.
A pair were on Project X, and a pair on the Calmini Xterra.

The Project X bumpers were custom made for the 2002, and included a few extras like an air chuck mount on the rear bumper.

The bumper that was damaged was on the Calmini truck, and it was a new prototype, using only 10 ga. steel. It ran a bit long on the drivers side near the wheel well, and while driving over a large drop in Moab, got caught on the tire. This caused the bumper to get pulled down at a 45 degree angle.

The damage basically totaled the bumper, and we eventually just winched the side of the bumper up and out of the way, but realize, this was a prototype built just for the Calmini truck to test at GOX.

P.s. I've taken pictures of that tweaked prototype bumper at the Calmini food party that I missed most of... I'll post them for yall to see what happened a little later today.


-apwired

If you are interested in that bumper and i would call calmini and ask them if the skid plates they had on it that extended to the crossmembers are going to be part of it. it protected the front part quite well, and may be a worthwhile thing to wait for depending on what direction they go with their skid plate solution.

my only beef is it kinda pidgeon holes you into getting the rest of the calmini skid plates or stay with the stock ones. it didn't looks like you could mix the skid row plates with the calmini ones. which may or may not be a big deal to some. atleast that is the way the prototypes were. and the prototype skid plates protecting the underbelly of the truck have this strange V shape as it tapers away from the transfer case towards the rear diff. kinda defeats the point of skid plates if you desing huge gaps in there that disallow skidding all the way back. but again, these were prototypes!!! call steve kramer at calmini and talk to him if you have issues. i am sure he can address them. over all it looked pretty solid. i would go read the other threads where people have raised issues and thoughts about the calmini bumper and make sure you go to him with a barage of questions if you still have them.

I think the Calmini Skid Plates were built more with protection in mind rather than skidding over a rock all the way down the middle your X.

[ 09-14-2001: Message edited by: Kerensky97 ]

Thanks guys. I find it interesting that Calmini is taking advanced orders for a product whose specs are not even finalized. It could be months before it's finalized, let alone manufactured and shipped. I am also concerned of being an early adopter and finding out *in the field* all these problems for them to fix in later models. Too bad, I really dig the bumper...

Join the club! Some of the FOG's here have been the testbed for a lot of modifications (bad and good). Nice to have someone else take up the reins for a bit.