OK, everything went fine until I tried to put the 4 bolts into the front of the frame. those that mount the D-Rings and holds the bumper on. I have the Extreme HD bumper with a Warn Winch sitting in the bumper.

Question/ How and what are you using to tighten the 2 bolts on the inside of the frame for each side. Outside frame bolts no problem. With that winch sitting in there I can't see anyway to get a wrench or socket in there to hold the nuts.

Any help would be appreciated. I did a search and saw this question. But everyone went on a tangent and question was never answered.

Doug Hines
Benton, AR

 

Doug,
First off, Go Hogs!! I am from AR orgininally, but moved to VA for work. I just installed the RR HD front bumper about a month ago myself, and see your problem.
It is really a two man job. If you have the skidplate removed, one man can climb under the jeep and put a wrench on the nuts in the rear of the bumper, while the other, tightens the bolt end from the front.
Be sure not to tighten them up all the way, until you have all 8 bolts through the shackles and through the bumper, because if you tighten one side, the other sides holes will not align.
The instructions do not tell you which direction the the shackes should be installed(one end has a nut, and the other is the bolt head, but if you run into trouble with hole alignment, just turn them 180 and that might fix it.

 

Howdy neighbor...

I'm not sure which Warn winch you have, but I put the but I put the bumper on first and then added my M8000 afterwards. I had a few challenges getting some of the nuts threaded, but I put a piece of masking tape over the back of my wrench and then used it to get the nuts situated.

 

x2, I installed the bumper first, then added the winch, which made accessing the inside nuts fairly easy.

 

I have the same bumper with the Smittybilt winch - installed the bumper and then placed the winch into the bumper. I had problems with the inner lower bolts - I ended up adding some washers to the backside and using a deepwell socket to tighten from the inside. Without the additional washers I was not able to tighten all the way due to length of bolt vs. depth of socket.

It's a pain by yourself and my girlfriend was of no help!

Good luck....

 

x3 on adding the winch after. Did it alone. With the winch out it is very easy to get to those bolts. Getting the winch bolts all in was a little tricky.