Looking to do some offroading with your Suzuki Vitara or Chevy Tracker? The front air dam/valence hangs down really low on these rigs. Read more to see how you can gain 5″ of front ground clearance for free!

I recently got a cheap Vitara dubbed ‘PJ’ (my 3 year old wanted to name it ‘Pizza Johnson’ which we have no idea where he came up with, but we shortened it to ‘PJ’). The intention is to make it a super cheap offroad rig that my boy and I can go mess around with on the weekend.

Until I get the time/motivation to build an actual tube offroad bumper for a winch I wanted more clearance. I had seen some pictures of the ‘cut front bumper’ mod online but didn’t see any writeups on it. Here are some pics of how I did mine.

Now, to do something about that low hanging tow hook…

Not wanting to cut off the tow hook since it is pretty beefy, I decided instead to try to bend it up. First I tried just jacking up the vehicle by it, but it wasn’t enough weight. So I used a log chain on my jack with a socket in the center hole to keep it from slipping.

Do this at your own risk if you decide to try it. Please do it in a safe manner. Stay at a safe distance from any parts under pressure when you are working with them.

This was really quite uneventful and worked pretty well. I have a heavy duty jack and chain and stayed at a safe distance. You could probably also do this with a port-a-power or similar hydraulic tool (but I don’t have one, so I was working with what I had). Another option would be to make some pie slices in the top side, bend it up, then weld it back together, or cut it totally off and make a new tow point (which I will probably do at a later time).

There you have it. Another free mod to my cheap wheeling toy. Metal fabrication can save lots of money through not having to buy stuff when you can modify or make stuff yourself. Now YOU, go out in your shop and work on something!