When it comes to JK front bumpers, there's stock, and then there's really-super-bare-bones stock. My '08 JKU-X had the second kind - no tow hooks, no fogs, no nothing. So I figured I could improve the look some by swapping to a better-but-still-stock front bumper (which I procured from a fellow jeeper on this very forum!):


(you can see I had a small ding which made this swap an absolute necessity)

To get to the eight (18mm) nuts that actually hold the bumper on, I first had to remove the lower factory air dam, which was held on by a variety of plastic fasteners:

Push-type retainer (attached to bottom frame):



The push type retainer is easy to remove; first pull the center pin out, and then pull out the outer piece. I used a needle-nose pliers. Sadly, I had only one of these.

Tie-strap-type retainer (attached to bottom frame):



The tiestrap-type retainer is even easier to remove; I used scissors (I had only one of these, and I have no idea where it came from!)

Screw-type retainers (attached to bottom of bumper):




The screw-type reatiners were a b1+ch to remove, as they wanted to spin in place, rendering my phillips screwdriver useless. I resorted to the hacksaw and hammer removal method, in which I hack off enough of the top (the screws as well as the housings are all plastic) to pound out the rest through the hole (which is one of those things that sounds dirty, but isn't). In this pic you can also see the 18mm nut we'll be removing later.

On the outside edges I could get the small hacksaw inside the bumper to work from the top;




for the middle one (I think there should have been a few more, but at this point I was glad there wasn't), I had to tap it as far as I could from the top to get enough to stick out below where I could hack it from there.




A few scatches on the lower air dam from the hacksaw there, that will probably cost me .0634279 MPG, but I'll learn to live with it (snif).

These will obviously not be re-used:



After the lower air dam was finally removed, I removed the eight (18mm) nuts (I had a friend stand in front of the bumper as I removed the last two so it wouldn't fall off on me). As I carefully lowered the bumper, I noticed that the ABS/ESP wiring was also fastened to the inside, so I carefully pulled the four (yet another type) plastic fasteners with my needle-nose pliers (these can be re-used as is if you're gentle):




Once those were out, I could remove my boring old really-super-bare-bones stock bumper...


(you can see the wiring hanging in front)

then I held the new fancy better-but-still-stock bumper close enough to re-fasten the four ABS/ESP wiring fasteners before I bolted it back onto the frame with my same eight (18mm) nuts.



About 45 minutes total start to finish.

Caveats:

I have NOT yet replaced the lower air dam; I'll check my MPGs and decide if it's really needed or not. If so I'll need to go pick up some new push-type fasteners (I will probably *not* reuse the tiestrap-type fastener, as they tend to rattle).

My automotive socket set had both a 17mm and a 19mm socket, but no 18mm; I had to go buy an 18mm - which is why I made sure to mention it a couple times (18mm is what you need).

Also, I'm hoping next to get the wiring and plugs I need to get the fogs working, but that's a project for another day...

Thanks for reading!

- Cleavo