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Perry Mack
Winch Ready Bumpers
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Step 1 It arrived securely packed and protected on a pallet
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Step 2 One bumper, two bumper brackets and a bag of nuts and bolts – everything you need except wrenches.
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Step 3 Remove the old tow bar
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Step 4 Disconnect the factory fogs but keep the wiring harness so you can re-use it later
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Step 5 Remove the inside fender bolts at the frame and wheel wells. Keep the fender bolts, as you’ll reuse them.
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Step 6 Flawless finish – just as advertised
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Step 7 Mount the new bumper brackets onto the frame horns with the old bolts. They are a left and right bracket – mount them holes high with the offset to the outside.
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Step 8 Nice clean weld work everywhere. The factory fog mounts won’t work with the new bumper
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Step 10 This is where it really helps to have a buddy (or two). Slide the bumper onto the brackets – one guy underneath lining up the bolts.
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Step 11 Snug up the bolts, loose enough that you can still shove the bumper around but tight enough that it stays where it’s shoved. Jack stands can make this a one-person job.
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Step 12 Adjust the height of the bumper and align the angle to match the rake of the truck. This is when you’ll appreciate the one bracket design. Some aftermarket bumpers require a couple of adjusting plates. More plates = more bolts = more movement – making it harder to align and creating a bigger frustration factor. Now tighten down the bolts. The bumper can move around – so this is also a good time to have a sober buddy eyeing it up as you finish tightening all the bolts.
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Step 13 Zap strap the factory fog connections so they don’t bounce around and remove the cables from the old bumper. That way you can reuse the cable for your new fogs and the existing fog switch on your dash.
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Step 14 There’s no screw holes for your plate. We zap strapped it on for now until we install the winch and the new plate holder.
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Step 15 The metal logo bolted on to the bumper is a quality touch.
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Picasa
Step 16 With the new Winch Ready bumper and Rugged Ridge fender flares the Dodge is shaping up.
Story and photos by Perry Mack
There are lots of good reasons to swap out your stock factory bumper with an after market product. There’s the aesthetic value – it helps personalize your vehicle; there are the practical reasons – mounting lights, winches, tow hooks for off-road use; and there’s the ‘forced reason’, as in ‘I slid on the highway, hit a f***ing cement divider, s**t my pants and I have to get a new bumper’ reason.
They were all good reasons for me to ditch the factory bumper on the Dodge Ram 1500 and upgrade to a Winch Ready bumper. And yes, the company name and the style of the bumper are the same. Winch Ready is a relatively new company (2005) out of California that ships into Canada. On the web site they make some pretty bold claims – ‘highest quality’, ‘aesthetically appealing’, ‘flawless in fit and finish’ and ‘ease of installation’.
I chose the Pre-Runner Winch Bumper in a smooth metallic grey powder-coated finish. Textured finishes are nice but I wanted to see the quality of the welds and you can’t hide anything in a smooth finish. There are a number of designs available for the different models and years of trucks, with plenty of cool accessories (flip-up license plate frames) and optional features (2” Receiver Hitch, Quick Disconnect Battery port) to fill your needs.
Unwrapping the bumper, I have to confess - the build quality is great. Welds are solid and the finish is smooth. The double concave under the headlights is beautifully done – a real quality bumper.
Trent at Kelowna Truckworks offered his shop for the install (it always goes faster if I can stand back and take photos while someone else does the dirty work, thanks to Dave Kalinocka) but this can easily be a driveway mod. The tires never came off the ground and a good wrench set will get the job done. We had this bumper installed in about an hour.
All the necessary hardware is included – other than we didn’t get any instructions. Maybe it was just a test, as turned out we didn’t need any instructions (that’s not just Canadian male talk). This install couldn’t be simpler and could be done by one person but it will be easier and faster if you have a buddy help to lift and align the bumper.