I recently bought a 4runner and soon after a smittybilt bumper that was advertised on craigslist as my year of bumper... i got it, sand blasted it, and powder coated it. there's 4 mounting brackets coming off the bumber and i found out where the bottom 2 mount but i'm having troubles with the top 2. there doesn't seem to be anything near the brackets... i don't know if the bumper is just for the wrong year, or maybe it mounts onto the stock bumper (which is no longer there) but i was wondering if anyone knew anything or had any pics... here's pics of mine.

here's the bumper. the flat plate on the front was added by someone i think, cuz i've never seen it before...


this is what it looks like on the truck now. it's only held on by 2 bolts, so it's not offering much protection:


this is the bottom bracket all bolted up. the connecting bracket looks homemade, but it works:


this is the top brackets. you can see that the only bolt even close to it is that bolt on the frame...


so what do ya think? i might go find some fab shop to make me some new brackets so it'll reach those frame bolts in the picture, but they're offcenter so i don't think that's how it's supposed to be... but i'm really kinda out of my element here.

Looks like the original owner welded a tab to fit what ever year vehicle they had. Your right with only two bolts per side it will not give much strength. Weld a tab similar to the one that is on there  and let it attach to the body mount bolts on each side .
The best way for me to describe the bracket is that it would look like a lazy L. I did something similar to a used bumper I bought a while back and used the body mount bolt to secure it to. I removed the body mount bolt put the bracket on top of the frame piece and let the bracket take the place of the “cup” that the rubber bushing sit in. Don’t know if that makes sense but a bracket would give strength. Good luck

spending that much money on a smittybilt bumper is dumb. its just going to rust from the inside out if it hasnt already started

well here's the solution i came up with. my friends dad brought down a welder when he came to visit so we threw on some brackets... they're not to pretty, but they function...







like i said not too pretty, but it saved me about 100 dollars if i was gonna have a shop do it...

 

the frame mounts right behind that metal... i figured it'd do... i don't plan on winching up my 4runner by the bumper anytime soon.

If I'm not mistaken, you just welded that new bracket to the body.  Which means your frame is now hard mounted to your body.  You should see an increase in vibrations.  Also, it would be my opinion that your bumper without those mounts is probably as strong as your bumper with those mounts.  The only thing this will do is mangle the body when you do hit something with the bumper