Trail Ready Rear Bumper

So I picked one of these up used awhile back, got it for $125. Seemed like a good deal, swing-away tire carrier had been cut off, but the arm and hinge were intact. After probably fifteen hours of scraping and sanding rust and re-painting it, it looks good. So I install it over the weekend, had to cut away the sheet metal over the "frame" hole in the XJ rear to allow the inserts to go in. Then I had to elongate the holes on the "frame" bottom to match up with the weldnuts on inserts. Then I had to push, pull, and otherwise cajole the center section of the bumper to get the four main bolts through from the bottom. What a PITA, but I'm thinking I'm almost done, right?

Well, whomever designed the wraparound end pieces is a piece of tainted human excrement. Had to remove the rear taillights to access the little triangular area to even get a wrench back there on the upper two allen bolts that hold the ends on. Also had to super-glue the washers to the nuts and tape the nuts to a box end wrench to get them to stay in so I could get them back in there. The lower two on each side were a bit better to access. had to bump, push, pull, and hammer the ends to line them up so the swingarm latch lined up with the hole. Okay, I'm done, right?

Wrong. I look at the boxed ends of the wraparounds in the wheelwell, they're sitting about two inches from the rear tires. Now I'm going to have to cut them off and weld in a new box plate if I want any tire clearance, in addition to building a new tire carrier since some crusty piece of filth cut the original one off.

In the end, the time and effort I've spent on this POS would have been better spent buying a bumper that's not so farked up that the company still manufactures it.

I feel like killing someone right now, but the only worthy candidate is myself for buying this jungle-gym looking abortion in the first place.

How's your day going?

Hey man,....

Relax and give those guys a break. The original instructions probably had some kind of legal disclaimer like: "Some modification may be required. The manufacturer does not warrent the sutability of this product for your application(or indeed any application!)

Remember, the name was "Trail ready", not "Instalation ready"

And those lawyers worked a long time on the documentation before that POS could ship. Give credit where credit is due



PS; I feel your pain.

Sounds like fun...........got any pics of the install?

yea pictures would be nice...

Sounds like it was HECHO IN MEXICO for a Volkswagon policia car maybe??? The cheap stuff that you think is a good deal seems like it is always like that! Sorry to hear that man!

I agree give credit where credit is due... If you could have done better why didn't you? But also you have to remember you did not read the instructions that came along with the bumper.

Fubar XJ: My whole first post was a tongue in cheek response to the dual societal stupidities of legal disclaimers and really crap documentation. Ever read the legal warning on a GUN Barrel? Like that really needs to be there. Ever buy a product listed specifically for your application, and the first sentence on the first page says " The manufacturer makes no claim as to the suitability of this product,..."(then why the ^@*&#*$ did they build it!) A friend of mine bought $1100.00 worth of frame mods for a CJ, and the documentation consisted of 5 photocopied pages of hand drawings done on notebook paper with barely legible notes.

I wasn't trying to jump in your shit man. Don't take it that way.

TrailReady is based out of Everett, WA and I know Larry Trim, the owner, personally, and my brother in law used to build those bumpers. I'm not so sure you got a bumper that hasn't been buthcered up, but you did get a smoking deal, as they retail for over $1000, probably closer to $1500 with the tire carrier.

You do have to do a little modifying to get the bumper installed, but it sounds like you got something that someone had previously butchered up.

I feel your pain man. Went through the same thing a few years back... Got front and rear TR bumpers that were never installed, for about 1200 bones. The front went on fine, but what a pita the rear was... I ended up using 1/4"x2" steel strips to 'sandwich' the part that goes into the frame rails. Otherwise it would have been pretty skimpy. But I remember lining up those holes etc... not easy. And the included allen bolts were very small harware for those side pods. I ended up buying my own grade 8 bolts.
Oh, and the pods reached out and stole a couple of lugs off of my 34/9.5 swamper at partial stuff..... I had to cut them back myself, and still haven't had someone weld in new box ends.. Did this to both front and rear. Lame... I called TR in Everett about it, but didn't get anywhere. Those pods didn't even clear 31s on 5" lift!!

I guess it looks nice, but I haven't beat on it on any trails yet to test it. I've developed some play in the single hinge on the tire carrier, and it doesn't seem to be servicable. I only ran a spare on it for a short while.

I understand that not everything fits perfectly, that wasn't my point. I can't knock the deal I got, and the rust removal, re-painting and tire carrier fab I knew I'd have to do going in, so no big deal there. Installing those wraparound side jungle gyms was a major PITA, and seemed like it should have been engineered better. I can even give them a pass on that, I'm sure they came up with the best design and application they could at the time for the install. But the excessive wheelwell overhang? That's just stupid. Obviously, anyone putting beefy aftermarket bumpers on an XJ plans on taking it offroad, which also involves a lift of some degree and oversize tires. In excess of 2 inches of dead-space overhang into the wheelwell is unacceptable. Anyone who actually wheels with one of these monkeybar contraptions is gonna have to trim that down or destroy their expensive tires.

That is the worst offense here.


And I haven't taken any of your comments negatively. like I said, I made my own bed here, just didn't expect to have major trim and fab on an application specific product like this. Their engineers should have taken that into consideration.

I'll take some pics and see about posting them up later.

We had one on one of my brother in law cherokees and I don't remember seeing any overhang on the side pieces, thats weird. We ran them with 33" Baja Claws and never had troubles.

I believe that's because they changed the overhang on the later models. It seems that the early ones like mine had that particular issue.

Mine's a '91, so I don't know how that translates as to whether they fixed the overhang issue on the '95 and later ones. I do know that the slotted holes allow for about an inch of fwd/aft adjustment on the side guards, but the center piece is non-adjustable. If I push the guards all the way aft to avoid some of the wheelwell overhang, the swingarm doesn't even sit on the nylon rest on the main bumper like it's supposed to. I'll be taking pics and trimming the wheelwell overhang over the weekend, with a little luck and a lot of fiber wheel ingested, it'll turn out okay.

The kicker is I noticed last night that just hitting dips in the road at 35 mph the rear of the Jeep dips anough to cause the bottom front of the side guards to hit the tires. I'm sure my stock springs are feeling the weight of the bumper a bit, making it more of an issue, but still unacceptable.

totally unacceptable... I have no idea how they put them on the market that way. I got mine in 2002 or so, used but not installed, on ebay. TR's website pics didn't show the severe overhang, so I bought them. And as stated before, had to trim a lot off to clear 31s....

I'll be trimming and boxing them over the weekend. Stopped by Everett Steel yesterday and picked up a length of 2" x 3/16" wall square tube stock for the tire carrier fab, I may get started on that as well. Also putting in the CSM radiator and Flowkooler water pump, I may not have time to do it all.

This XJ is turning into every bit the time dump the CJ was/is.

I'm in the same exact process right now. I bought a used rear TR with tire carrier for next to nothing. It had been used well but after some sanding and painting it looks good as new. So we go to install it and it sits about 2.5-3" too low, so my buddy is gonna have to modify the mounting backets to get it where I want it.
It's hard to complain when you get a $1500 bumper for next to nothing, and I wont' go as far as to say the mounting design is an "easy install" but the bumper is well made and man you gotta love the quarter guards!

Anyone got pictures of the infamous $1500 bumper cause I sure would like to see one! If anyone is buying a single bumper at $1500 then it better be made of gold IMO. I think $600 for a Warn is way too expensive. I could think of many different things to spend $1500 on then a bumper! But if you get it at that price and have to do some slight mods to get it to fit then that is a great thing. Buying a $250 winch bumper brand new that is supposed to be a bolt up and you have to mod it like that then that would be a whole new story. So I say you get a bad ass $1500 bumper that would pull the leaning tower of piza (sp?) straight, for a couple of hundred and you only have to do a couple of mods to make it work then that is a pretty sweet deal. Good luck!atriot:

Sounds like you're trading money for time. I gave $400 for my bumper and spent a couple hours stripping/painting it, and about an hour installing it. Saved $300 over list and I'm done. Like my rock rails, $225+ shipping from AJ's, primered, painted, couple hours installing, done. I could've spent $100 in materials, built my own in a day or so. Sometimes it's just worth it to spend the extra for something that fits and you don't have to modify. I would've stopped at the cutting sheetmetal access part and re-assessed that bumper.

Trail Ready front bumper,,,1,100 bucks , Looks good ,mounts like crap ! had to cut the sides where it meets the body because it was way tight, 32nd of an inch clearence maybe? had to slot the holes higher to get the bolts in because they were half an inch to low. After pulling it all the way forward i could get my new warn 9.5 in only to find out that there is one quarter inch clearence behind the drum to the grille for the cable to rotate, wonder what will happen when the cable gets over itself as they do? how about any side pull for a while?
So i called Larry,he says oh ya,they wont take the 9.5 ! So i asked ,how come you didnt tell me that when i ordered it and told them the winch is going to be a 9.5 ?
So he tells me when i am in the area to stop by so he can see it. I will be there soon,as soon as i get my b.s. lift (kits) done so i can drive it again. I see there is a new improved version on the cover of 4 wd and sport utility,last months issue i believe.
Does look good though, just wish i could use that other expensive thing on the front,that is after i run some more steel down the frame rails so it wont blast off there. :dunno: 96 money pit,but i like it ,if i could drive it