We’re having fun today wrapping up the Rock Bugs ultra compact, ultra light weight front winch mount.  I was going to upload some pictures and video without a follow-up blog post.  Then I realized nowhere have I mentioned that nearly 100% of every steel component on this buggy is made from chromoly.  If your browsing through the Rock Bug pictures, especially of this extremely light weight winch mount, it’s important to know this up front, otherwise you may think we have lost our ever-loving engineering minds!

The entire chassis is made from a well blended mixture of 0.120”, 0.095”, and 0.065” wall 4130 chromoly tube.  The winch mount shown here is all 0.095” thick 4130 chromoly plate.  The Spider 9 housings are constructed of 0.188” thick 4130 chromoly tube and plate and will also be fully heat treated after all welding is complete.  The same goes for the suspension control links where the lowers are 2” x 0.120” wall and the uppers are 1.25” x 0.095” wall 4130 chromoly with heat treatment after welding.  All of this to save weight without a compromise to strength, the underlying theme of the Rock Bug.