Hi all! I’m looking at maybe getting a kei truck but something that concerned me is safety. If you guys have ideas or recommendations on how to make them safer I’d love to hear them. Another thing so was wondering is if a bull bae would help in the event of a front end collision, they don’t seem to have much protection in the front. Thanks!
In order to pass safety regulations here in Saskatchewan, amongst many other issues, I was required to add a length of 4" steel channel as frontal impact absorbtion. I was able to hide it under the plastic front bumper of my '92 Mitsubishi MiniCab after quite a bit of fettling, but I did it, and it's now invisible.
Safety is subjective, they'll never be as safe as a larger vehicle with airbags, crumple zones, etc. But they're safer than a motorcycle! My thoughts on improving safety - Add steel bumpers. Add wheel spacers/wider tires. Add third brake light. But mostly, be aware when driving it.
I built a steel bumper on mine and the added security was one of the reason I did it. I wonder in Japan how the death/injury rate of kei truck compare to regular vehicules.
if you add an improved bumper system, you need to put some thought into the strength of the points you are attaching the bumper too. There are a couple of videos on YouTube, where they added a Jeep CJ bumper to a mini, by bolting it to the front of the cab. Looks beefy, but they didn’t do a good job of attaching it to real hard points. To my engineer brain, it looks like it might actually make things worse in a collision, because it will just rotate around the kind o decent mount at the bottom, and intrude into the front of the cab. I built some “stouter than the gates of hell”, bumpers for mine, with integrated receivers for a winch, snowplow, and the outriggers to level out and stabilize the truck, when I use the bed as a man lift. And they are very securely anchored into the frame. If they move at all the truck is probably totaled. But most of the mounting schemes folks come up with leave me concerned. You need to identify the hard points, and mount to them. On my Hijet, S110-P, they are the towing point mounts, and the mount for the center pivot for the steering and front differential, on the front. And, on the rear there is a tube which runs through the frame rails just above the rear spring perches, and has fillet welds on both sides of both frame rails. These are hard points. Every where else on the truck is made of very thin sheet metal, and not really a good mount point.
I agree with Jigs. - - To be of any use, the bumper has to attach to "hard points". In my case, I mounted mine to the ends of the frame rails in the front.
Exactly! Arty, that's what I did in a past post about a year or so ago! I agree with you and Jigs!!! Limestone
