project floodwater 2012

so, this is happening now

 

pita but from a distance it looks good. glad it's over. won't do it again. i guess not technically over...i have one splash shield i still need to get into place, but i broke too many plastic clips

 

Needed a decent rear bumper since the oe style doesn't hold up to ranch work, but I cringe when I see the prices and with the front, I learned high dollar and big name don't mean great, so I settled for a hookie off road bumper for just under $500.

Installation was super easy and it looked great. But I did find the tow points should not be used. We had a snow storm and I needed a tug out of my spot. Shortly thereafter I noticed the bumper was crooked. I thought maybe I installed it crooked. Today I crawled underneath to find the the bracket bent. I'll have to pull the whole bumper, inspect it and reinforce the brackets, but for now, I just adjusted it all the way forward.

If you don't use the tow points or reinforce them it's a nice looking bumper.

UPDATE: the hooke rear mount that wasn't bent broke at the seam of the bend, so i had a friend make me some 1/4 mounts. so much better now.

 

4 years later, the hooke bumper is going away. after a friend got stuck in my driveway and needed a pull out, the bumper was once again crooked. ordered a dv8, hopefully it will be tougher.

the bumper isn't the only thing that has taken a beating. i finally replaced my 8 year old tonneau cover with a ew prox15. also one of the daystar air bag cradles had cracked in half at some point. i replaced the broken one, but the air bag may have suffered. i have to do more evaluating to see if it's leaking air or the line itself is the problem.

 

and, of course, the first thing you do when you spend a lot of money on a bumper is to tape it off and carve holes in it