After working at Luke's, Scott met me at the house to pick up the merchandise to take back to his man garage, where he had every tool imaginable to bolt these on the JK. Trust me, I was sure pleased that he's got a sweet work area, plus an even sweeter F250 where we could throw these large boxes in the bed. The above photo was taken in his garage after we unloaded.
The front bumper removal was pretty straight forward. Took off the plastic shroud that was underneath the front. Then removed the eight screws holding the factory fog lights into the stock bumper. Now it's been a few weeks since we did this, so I can not recall how many other screws we took out to take off the front bumper. As I remember though, it was quite simple. Above you see the JK shortly after removal of the stock front bumper. Mostly made of plastic, as it did not have that much weight to it.
The rear bumper was pretty straight forward as well, with a total I believe of about eight screws holding it to the frame. Once we took that off, I was extremely surprised that I could toss the bumper around like a rag doll. Much lighter than the front bumper. I couldn't believe that Jeep would have that as the rear end protection. Oh well, I wasn't too worried about it. With Project Fallen Axe getting the rear bumper with tire carrier, we had to remove the factory spare tire carrier, which included the third brake light as well. More to come on what was done with that later in the post.
Now for the fun part. The mounting of the front bumper was easy. Eight bolts, that's it. But first, we did screw in the factory fog lights with the screws that came with the new bumper. No problem there. Then we just slide the Rockhard 4x4 bumper onto the front frame rails. The only disappointing thing I have to say about the front bumper was that no instructions came with. Now we're not rocket scientists but there were eight metal spaces that we didn't know where to mount. But after discussing how they fit, we were able to figure out that they go on the inside part of the bumper where the eight bolts get mounted. The bolts just pass through the spacers to make tightening up everything much easier as far as accessibility went. That's it. I was very pleased.
As for the rear bumper, instructions were included with all the hardware. Thank goodness. The actual bumper was somewhat difficult to mount due to it being a tight fit onto the rear frame. Using a few different methods we were able to mount it securely using some of the pre-existing bolts from the factory bumper. Two on each side, then two bolts that came with the kit into the middle of the frame. The two in the middle were a little difficult to get at which made tightening those down a pain in the ass. Never the less, it was able to get done.
Now before we added on the tire carrier, the stock spare one had to be removed. Unplugged the third brake light and unscrewed it from its mount. Then took out the screws that were holding the tire carrier frame to the tailgate. After reading through the instructions, I found that no where did it mention of mounting the brake light to anything. Instead, I took the wiring and tucked it into what I call a bash bar that came with the rear bumpers. This piece just mounts using a couple bolts through the factory holes. I purchased separately some rubber washers to place between this bar and the tailgate to protect the paint and more importantly, to keep water from finding its way inside the tailgate.
Now I thought the most important part of the install was anything that moves. Hence, the tire carrier. To my surprise again, the directions were very simple to understand. A few washers, mount the swing arm, a couple spare washers and then the cap. Again I have to thank Scott for his expertise here because I knew of nothing regarding dielectric metals. With his knowledge we lubed a few parts up and "BOOM" the tire carrier was mounted.
Byrge
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