Smittybilt XJ front bumper installed!

I got my bumper finally!

The quality is pretty good, and the finish is nice. I did have to modify the bracket on the drivers side to fit around the ugly reinforcement plate that was welded to the frame rail by the DSPO, and I had to drill out two holes because they didn't line up, but it was pretty easy to do and I had the whole thing done in a morning. My fenders were already cut, so half the work was already done.

I also put in a Smittybilt XRC10 Comp Series 10K winch with synthetic rope. Overall I'm very happy with the setup.

Here's the final result:



When I bought it, I talked to the sales guy, and he said they had plenty in stock, so availability is finally good on these, and the price rocked. I would definitely recommend this bumper. I really needed a winch and a way to mount it.

The combo drooped my front end a bit, but I already have some RE 5.5" springs waiting to go in, and that should bring things back to level. I'll put those in soon.

Looks good !

Right on Pete! The XJ looks good! About how much did the bumper cost ya?

The bumper was $399. I picked this one because to me the design looks smoother than the RC bumper, and the D-Ring mounts and winch plate are fully welded instead of bolt-on. That to me was worth an extra $20 in price.

I am curious to see how it mounts up every pic of the bumper I see is from the front I never see how it is mounted

I'll go take some pics, but basically, there are two plates that are bolted to the frame rails. They go quite a bit further back along the frame rail than the stock mounts. On the drivers side the plate integrates into the steering box bolt mounts, and it provides quite a bit of additional support.

On mine I had to cut quite a bit of the drivers side bracket off to make it work with the reinforcement plate that was already welded on there when I bought the Jeep. I will have that welded on at some point, but in reality, I don't think I'm going to have any problems.

On the passenger side, there was a bracket that had to be fished inside the frame to provide mounting. It also required the frame to be drilled to get the last two bolts through. I did not drill out these last two holes on that side, as I felt that the bolts I did get mounted already provided plenty of support. Each side has no less than 7 mounting points. That's plenty strong. At some point I may re-think this, and then I'll bite the bullet and drill them out.

One thing that is never covered is what to do with the vacuum accumulator. I wound mounting it to the fender bracket with zip-ties. It worked great and is well out of the way.