When it came time to put bumpers on my JKU, I spent a ton of time on the forums looking at various threads and pictures of available bumpers. Thankfully, there is a wealth of information available that others have posted for folks such as myself.
My criteria for the front bumper was that it had to be look good, be full-width, heavy duty, incorporate the factory fog lights, have recovery points, and a mounting spot for a future winch. While I loved the look of the AEV, the price was a little outside of the budget for my build. I discovered the Bestop High Access front bumper and saw that it was available in Matte, a finish that looked close to my stock flares. It had everything on my wish list and was only about $600 including the Tubular Grill Guard.
For the rear bumper, I wanted one that was full-width, had a swing out tire carrier that moved with the tailgate, recovery points, and worked with the stock trailer hitch or had one built-in. Bestop's HighRock 4x4â„¢ Rear Bumper with Tire Carrier fit that bill perfectly.
The part numbers for these items are:
HighRock 4x4â„¢ Rear Bumper with Tire Carrier in Matte Finish: 44934-01
HighRock 4x4â„¢ High Access Front Bumper in Matte Finish: 44918-01
HighRock 4x4â„¢ Tubular Grill Guard: 44915-01
I ordered these from a small local shop, wanting to give them my cash and waited. About 2 weeks later I had front and rear bumpers and the carrier, but the front grill guard was still not in. While the tire carrier was boxed extremely well, the boxes containing the bumpers had both broken out and both bumpers had some chipping – mostly on the D-Ring mounts. Not happy, but figuring I could fix that (Rustoleum Truck Bedliner spray is a good match!) , I proceeded to install the rear bumper first.
Rear Bumper:
Removing the spare tire and installing the bracket for the Heim joint was easy except that the last two bolt holes on the end of the “C†didn't quite allow the bolt to go through and thread into the tailgate. Issue number one now made known, I simply enlarged the holes slightly and everything fell into place perfectly...until I noticed that this bracket didn't look like the one in the manufacturer's pictures or the instructions. Where those show a short “Câ€Â, mine was much larger.
Ok, not a big deal, and I figure that will spread the load over the tailgate better.
I removed the 10 pound, joke of a plastic rear bumper, and installed the Bestop unit. Things went smoothly and the bumper looked great. I followed instructions on the carrier bearing and started to install it when I ran into the second issue: the carrier spindle was pressed hard against the factory tailgate hinges!
Looking at the carrier, it was obvious that the carrier was not sitting parallel to the tailgate too – and I'd not even installed the rubber bumpers on it yet!
Back at the computer, I notice the Bestop factory pictures of the JK model show a completely different spindle with a smaller diameter base and cap!
The one that I have is shown on the TJ model in their factory pictures:
After doing more research online and talking to Bestop (who were not too helpful by phone) there may be two or more versions of this carrier being used. They both use the same spindle bearing it would appear, as well as the tailgate mounting “C†bracket.
After thinking about it, I decided to elongate the holes on the side bumper brackets in order to slide the bumper back about 1/4â€Â. This moved the spindle away from the tailgate and straightened the rear carrier properly. Once done, I installed the rubber bumpers on the carrier that contact the bracket. These were easily about 3/4†too long and again pushed the carrier at a crooked angle from the tailgate. Using a hacksaw, I cut them to the appropriate size and then finished them off nicely with a quick hit of a table disk sander. Now, the carrier sat properly! The Heim joint was easy to install and adjust.
The LED light and tire mount went on without a hitch and since I'd done my research, I already knew to reverse the wires on the light. Once done, the bumper is outstanding and fits my needs perfectly. The few installation issues aside, it was pretty easy and gets lots of compliments from other JK owners.
Front Bumper:
The front bumper was simple to install after removing the worthless 20 pound plastic one (see a theme here?). I installed the bumper about a month before the grille guard came in. It fits well and as a full-width looks great. The only complaint I could have is that it doesn't bend back to perfectly meet the flares, but that is a minor gripe.
The original shop I ordered the guard from had two come in that were wrong – one was marked JK in matte finish but was a TJ part and the other came in as a JK with the glossy finish. All of that took 2 months before I had them refund my money. Not their issue, but I wasn't waiting for their distributor to fix the issue for the third time. I ordered the part online and got it in 3 days with the correct part!
The factory fog lights are a simple installation and look good. Once the guard came in, I installed it (you have to remove the bumper to do so) and mounted 2 new Hella Black Magic lights. As I wired it up, I became less enchanted with the way it looked; too much wire wrap and wiring exposed. My wife came into the garage and stated the obvious: “The wires look like crap exposed. Why don't you drill a hole and run them through the guard?â€Â. A genius, this woman is! Off came everything again and out came the drill.
I drilled two small holes under the light mounts and inserted rubber grommets. Using some light string to fish the wires, I ran those into the holes and with the shop vacuum sucked them out the holes in the bottom of the guard I'd drilled for the wiring.
Matching those holes with the bumper, I then drilled the bumper and mounted the guard and finished running the wires.
The wiring was easy and I followed Hella's suggestion and tapped the high-beam wire (White/Green) on the driver's side headlight so I can run them by using the high/low beam switch (note: the rocker switch for the high-beams must be switched on for this to work!) and can rest easy knowing they are off when I shut off the Jeep. I did put the 6†of exposed wires in corrugated wire loom and used small black wire ties to keep them cleaned up and tight.
And the final results:
Was it some work? Yes, but it was well worth it! I love the way it looks, the bumpers are seriously heavy duty, and I'm now in the market for a winch!
The best part though? My wife now likes the way it looks. Happy wife, happy life!
