Phase VII - ARB Front & Rear Bumpers

So we’re finally going to install the Front and Rear ARB Bumpers on our Jeep.

ARB is world renown for their Air Lockers but when it comes to Bumpers they’re above the rest. The quality and engineering that go into them is second to none. ARB Bumpers are the only ones that are AIRBAG Certified on the market today. They are designed to be highly durable, lightweight and yet designed to absorb impact if the unmentionable happens.

The front bumper is pretty basic. Undo the 6 bolts holding the factory bumper, light up the new bumper up and bolt back on using all new hardware.

Seeing that we just installed a winch bumper, it be rude not to put a winch on.

For this we are going to be installing WARN’s latest hi-tech 9.5ti winch. This  powerhouse is a work of art, it has Thermo Integrated technology that let’s you know when the winch is close to overheating. This will reduce down time and wear and tear on the winch. It does this from a red LED light on the winch remote. COOL STUFF!

It’s pretty basic to install a winch, the only challenge was trying to get the winch inside the bumper. After shoe-horning the winch in from the side, it’s a really tight fit inside the mounting location. But it sure look great in there.

The Rear Bumper is a little more challenging.

Extra attention should be taken when reading the instructions. There are a lot of prep work and hidden clip-on-nuts that need to be attached before you mount the bumper on the frame. If you miss one, you’re going to be taking the whole bumper off to get at it.

Here you seen the nuts clipped onto the backside of the bumper

Now we have to insert the alignment bolt for the swing away spare tire carrier. This seemed to be very difficult as there is not a lot of room to get your finger in there.

As for the bumper brackets, they mount up to the factory slotted holes in the frame. The nuts have to be fed up through access holes and left loose to center the bumper.

After we loosely mount up the bumper on the brackets, we attach some of the bumper latches on.

Once the bumper is centered to the body, there are 2 holes in the middle of the bumper that need to be marked put for drilling. The bumper then has to be removed to drill out the 2 marked locations and an additional 2 to hold the back bracket in place.

Now we mount the bumper back on and drill 2 more additional holes up through the frame brackets and bumper mounts on each side.

As you can see there’s about 5 bolts and 2 more on top (hidden from view) which gives you 7 attached mount points for superior strength. This will be necessary to support the weight of the tire carrier & 35” spare and the additional use for HI-LIFT jacks to change flats and towing purposes.

After the bumper is lined up and bolted together, its time for the swing away carrier.

Insert the huge bolt supplied with some grease and snug it up. No too tight or it won’t swing free.

The lock out pin, hydraulic gas shock and latching mechanism with urethane guide can be attached.

There’s a cover plate that needs to be attached over the support guide on the bumper.

From here we attach the wheel studs to the mounting plate for our spare. There are several holes to allow for different size wheel patterns. We’re configuring ours for 5-on-4.5”. the mounting plate then has to be adjusted out to allow our spare tire to sit flat up against the carrier. You’ll be taking it on and off serval times to get the right fit.

With the full weight of everything we finally mount the 35” spare on and make sure it opens. Some minor adjustments with the alignment bolt on the carrier hinge, we make sure that it operates easy and latches up properly to the bumper.

Stay tuned for more as next week we install a Customer Carpet Headliner and repaint the Hardtop.

For more info on ARB Product visit www.arbusa.com and  http://www.cap-it.com/offroad.html