When I bought my 2 dr off the lot it did not have the factory tow hooks. Today I bought the Mopar kit with the front tow hooks.

The instructions show taking off the front grill along with the bumper, air dam, and the valance between the front bumper and grill.

My question is this. Has anybody installed these before and do you really have to remove the front grill to do this?

My bumper doesn't have the built in fog lights. And it has the blanks that need to be cut out for the hooks to protrude.

I expected to remove the bumper and air dam but I really don't want to remove the grill if I don't have to.

Anybody?

 

Don't sweat the grill removal. It took you longer to type your message than it does to remove the grill. see the "Grill Mod" thread for step by step instructions. I have had mine off about 5 times.

 

Make sure you have your sawsall ready. The instructions do not show the large hole you must cut out on the inside of the bumper to get the tow hooks to fit. I did it with a hand saw and it was a huge pain in the hand!

As KC JEEP said, the grill is the easy part. I left the air dam off, it becomes a huge anchor if you nose into a hole and need to be pulled out from the rear. IMO, the JK looks better without the air dam, and I did not see a gas mileage difference that justified keeping it on.

 

I second that, a few plastic screw looking things, a quick tug at the bottom, and disconnect the two orange lights and the grill is off, once you've done it once, you'll honestly be able to do it with your eyes closed, no joke, its prolly one of the easiest things to take off on the JK

 

Thanks everybody.

I'm not used to this Jeep thing yet. I'm used to cars where you have disassemble half of them just to change a light bulb and you need special factory tools just to do that.

 

Berg,

While you have the tow hooks off, can you give me the bolt hole dimensions? Sorry to hijack your thread....

 

No problem. Glad to help out.

I was planning to do this this weekend, but if the weather is nice like they say its going to be, I'm dropping the top and going wheeling. It's been nothing but clouds, rain and cold since I got my Jeep. So I may not get on this tow hook thing until next week.

I'm also going to do that grill mod with the expanded metal while I have it off. It's a very good look.

What bolt hole dimensions do you need?

 

Just did the grill mod with the gutter guard stuff from Lowe's....love the look.



I'm assuming the tow hook has a 4 hole bolt pattern in it that bolts to the end of the frame. Just need center to center both vertically and horizontally so I can make up my own bracket for shackle mounts instead of tow hooks.

 

Outstanding look!

Hey, did you buy your Jeep from that dealer in Hickory that always has them on E-Bay?

At one point I was was thinking of driving down to buy from him.

I'm originally from down that way. Spencer/ Salisbury to be exact.

 

Yep, Steve White in Hickory. Ended up ordering from the factory since I couldn't find what I wanted. They are really excellent to deal with and gave me a very good trade in on my TJ. SO far all my service work has been excellent also.

I hope they are paying you a lot to live up there in NJ. I moved down from Buffalo a year ago and they are going to have to make me leave kicking and screaming. I really love this area down here.

Thanks again for the help....