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Its time to add more armor to the the Suburban! How about a Suburban Rear Bumper! Even better, how about a Double Swingout Bumper! I wanted a complete package in the rear that had everything I wanted! Holding a spare tire, set of fuel cans, hi-lift, and a set of drop down tables. I wanted it all! Because the Suburban came with a drop down tailgate, I wanted double swing outs! This also distributes the weight, of all the gear, to TWO spindles! Plus by adding a drop table to each swing I could double my real estate with the tailgate dropped! Now thats what Im talking about! We had lots of cool ideas and plans, including a built in skid plate and quarter panel protection! So read on and see how the project went!
The most important thing we needed to start with was a good spindle. My buddy, Matt from Tread Industries, supplied a set of 1 3/4 inch spindles. That should be more than enough for what we needed. Especially since we are doing a double swing out. By doing this and distributing the weight, we should have NO sag issues. Just to make sure, I think we will add a support in the middle to take off any load from the spindle that we can.
Getting Started:
As usual the first thing we did is whip out the cardboard and start playing. We took several measurements. This was going to be alot bigger project than the front bumper, due to the swingouts, as well as the wrap around. 
We started working on the back bumper. One of my pet peeves is I didnt want the back bumper to be too different than theFront Winch Bumper. I wanted it to flow. I think it looks a little foolish having totally different looking bumpers on each end. So we really consentrated on making sure the back bumper resembled the lines of the front one. Just like the front, we gave it a good angle for exiting the rocks or other obsticles. It was built using the same materials as the front. This picture to the right shows the big 1.75 inch spindles used and how it flows thru the bumper and extends down. This will make it very strong and beefier than many other designs I have seen. You can also see that we tappered the rear bumper so that the later fuel tank skid plate would flow smoothly up to the bumper as well as making a good departure angle from trail obsticles.
We also built the 2 inch reciever into the bumper so we didnt have to have any low hanging objects. Here you can also see that the two swing outs were added. We decided to have them overlap and use one latch to close both. This gives it a cleaner look I think. Plus it makes it easier to deal with for the wife. One latch opens the whole setup and gives here acces to the tailgate. You can also see in the picture to the left that we carried the same design for the recovery points, as the front bumper. They are 3/8 inch thick and arent going anywhere. Because the weight of both swingouts were going to be in one place, Matt decided to add a support, welded to the bumper. This support would have both swing outs resting on it in the middle of the bumper. So when you close the swingouts, they rest on it. Works out very slick and reduces any chance for movement when closed. 
The double swingouts were added and recessed to assure that they were as close to the body as possible without having any interferance. The spare tire would be mounted on the left swing and the gas cans would be mounted to the right. Honestly in hindsite these should have been switched. Since the fuel door is on the drivers side, having the spare fuel on that side would make easier refills. We ordered our fuel can carriers from Adventure Trailer. These were then welded together and mounted on the swingout with a support loop under them. The spare tire holder turned out great. It has support tube going from the tire mount directly to the spindle for added strength. You can shake it back and forth and get NO movement. Heres a few pics to show the swingouts:
A quick note: I also forgot to mentioned that Matt added these cool spring loaded pins. They are stainless steel and lock the swingouts open so you dont have them swinging open into traffic or fighting them on a hill. We add two positions, one to clear opening the tailgate and the other goes out 90 degrees for a table setup to later be added.
Because Im dealing with such a large vehicle, I want lower quarter panel protection. After taking all the measurements, it was decided that we would actually cut the lower quarters and add a wrap around piece. But because of flex and a future EXO-cage project, we decided to seperate the rear bumper from the lower quarter protection. With the 3 inch body lift we completed earlier, we were able to have alot of working room above the gas tank. So we ran cross bracing above the frame from one side to another. 
Then we cut the lower quarter panels out completely and replaced it with 3/16 plate in kind of a triangle form. Once welded to the cross braces, this became solid as a rock! This would also be the foundation for the rear section of the Exo-Cage! You can actually jack the whole suburban up on these rear quarters and they wont budge! Bring it rocks! Lets see what you got! Below are a few more pics if you guys need ideas or anything.
If you like this, be sure to go back to the main Suburban Build page for links to other mods done!
