SyCo
NAXJA Forum User
- Location
- Spokane, WA
This is gonna be a long post so bear with me.
http://www.mountainoffroad.com/_e/B...00XJ/XJ_Rear_Bumper_1984_to_1996_Cherokee.htm
I ordered this bumper back in April because they were having an EJS sale, and had to it shipped to Virginia while I was living in Washington state. I moved back to VA two months ago and have spent the past month+ getting the bumper on my XJ. I definitely have had a love/hate relationship with this thing.
When I first installed it, it was definitely clear that this bumper was designed for a pre-97 XJ, which would be great except I drive a 98...
The first problem I ran into was with the brackets that bolt to the factory location and replace the nut strips. You'll see in the following picture that some sheet metal had to be bent in order for the brackets to fit flush against the unibody:
Not that big of a deal. But then one of the threaded inserts for their latch mechanism decided to break free and spin when one of the bolts were being tighten, so I had to tack those so I could completely fasten the bolts.
Now I got the brackets in place, but I also have a DPG gas tank skid, and MORE decided that rather than use the same nut strip pattern as factory, that they would use less nuts (three instead of five) and a different location for one one of the holes. This required drilling a new hole on each side of the gas tank skid, and liberal use of a rat tail file on the factory frame rails as well. This left me at a dilemma because I didn't want to use less bolts to secure the gas tank skid, so I ended up cutting the factory nut strips in half in order to utilize the last (closest to the front of the XJ) nut in the strip and it wouldn't interfere with MORE's brackets.
Great, so now the brackets are mounted in place and the gas tank skid is on. Now just slide the bumper shell on, right? NOPE. This bumper fits almost flush against the unibody, and on a pre-97 XJ this is fine, because there's nothing to interfere with that. However, my 98 had these sheet metal support tie-ins that had to be cut in order to make way for the bumper.
So I cut the sections, and then the holes for the bumper didn't exactly line up with the brackets, so more fun with the rat tail file. Ok, now everything is bolted up, and what do I see? That there are sizeable gaps between the taillight and the bumper, and that the bumper lines don't even match the quarter panel lines on the XJ.
At this point what should've been a couple hours install is soon approaching an entire day install. Fawk it, let's put the tire carrier on and be done with it. So I mount up the tire carrier, and what's the first thing that happens when I close it? It hits the license plate trim piece that houses the lamp! My trim piece is now cracked and the carrier won't close completely, so now I have to remove the trim piece.
Ok, so that's off, close the carrier, and there are clearance problems with the striker pin and how it engages in the latch mechanism. Ok, find an extra washer, extended the striker pin a bit, but wait! The threads on the striker pin are stripped, so now I gotta re-cut them with a die. Awesome...
Ok, finally, everything is mounted up, latch is secure, everythings on, the install has taken 12 hours to complete. I take I-95 to get to work, so the next morning I'm 25 mins into my drive the carrier has decided to open up on it's own on the freeway, great...
So obviously I'm pretty frustrated (ie: fawking pissed) and I call MORE up. I speak to Cody about all the problems and e-mail him pictures of the problems I've had. He's very apologetic and wants to make things right. They are aware of the differences in the 97+ models but unfortunately I ordered their bumper before they found these differences and made the necessarily corrections, because if I had even tried to mount a hi-lift on the tire carrier then the hi-lift would have hit the lift gate!
He ships out a new tire carrier and latch mechanism at no charge to me, which is great. Unfortunately, this model STILL hits the license plate trim piece, so I have to bring out Mr. angle grinder and shave some metal off.
Finally, everything fits, the new latch is much better, and I haven't had any problems in approximately two weeks. I love the latch mechanism on this bumper. The swing arm spindle is massive and uses wheel bearings for a slop free operation. The craftsmanship that's put into this bumper is fantastic, but unfortunately the fit was horrible! I think that this bumper looks better than anything else on the market today, and I love how the tire carrier is recessed into the bumper itself and doesn't interfere with the taillights. Also like how the tire & carrier sit close to the body. I've learned to live with the tail light gaps, which MORE has apparently corrected. MORE's customer service was great, but for the price of the bumper I would've expected every hole to line up, for the bumper to fit better, and to pretty much have a headache-free install.
This thread is in no way meant to bash MORE, but I want people to be aware, especially those with 97+ XJs and are interested in this bumper, of the problems they may encounter. This was easily one of the most frustrating installs I've done on my XJ, I'd rather set up gears again than deal with this bumper. I've ordered other products from MORE with no problems whatsoever, I think they make awesome accessories for a number of Jeep models.
Anyways, here's a few finished pics.
http://www.mountainoffroad.com/_e/B...00XJ/XJ_Rear_Bumper_1984_to_1996_Cherokee.htm
I ordered this bumper back in April because they were having an EJS sale, and had to it shipped to Virginia while I was living in Washington state. I moved back to VA two months ago and have spent the past month+ getting the bumper on my XJ. I definitely have had a love/hate relationship with this thing.
When I first installed it, it was definitely clear that this bumper was designed for a pre-97 XJ, which would be great except I drive a 98...
The first problem I ran into was with the brackets that bolt to the factory location and replace the nut strips. You'll see in the following picture that some sheet metal had to be bent in order for the brackets to fit flush against the unibody:
Not that big of a deal. But then one of the threaded inserts for their latch mechanism decided to break free and spin when one of the bolts were being tighten, so I had to tack those so I could completely fasten the bolts.
Now I got the brackets in place, but I also have a DPG gas tank skid, and MORE decided that rather than use the same nut strip pattern as factory, that they would use less nuts (three instead of five) and a different location for one one of the holes. This required drilling a new hole on each side of the gas tank skid, and liberal use of a rat tail file on the factory frame rails as well. This left me at a dilemma because I didn't want to use less bolts to secure the gas tank skid, so I ended up cutting the factory nut strips in half in order to utilize the last (closest to the front of the XJ) nut in the strip and it wouldn't interfere with MORE's brackets.
Great, so now the brackets are mounted in place and the gas tank skid is on. Now just slide the bumper shell on, right? NOPE. This bumper fits almost flush against the unibody, and on a pre-97 XJ this is fine, because there's nothing to interfere with that. However, my 98 had these sheet metal support tie-ins that had to be cut in order to make way for the bumper.
So I cut the sections, and then the holes for the bumper didn't exactly line up with the brackets, so more fun with the rat tail file. Ok, now everything is bolted up, and what do I see? That there are sizeable gaps between the taillight and the bumper, and that the bumper lines don't even match the quarter panel lines on the XJ.
At this point what should've been a couple hours install is soon approaching an entire day install. Fawk it, let's put the tire carrier on and be done with it. So I mount up the tire carrier, and what's the first thing that happens when I close it? It hits the license plate trim piece that houses the lamp! My trim piece is now cracked and the carrier won't close completely, so now I have to remove the trim piece.
Ok, so that's off, close the carrier, and there are clearance problems with the striker pin and how it engages in the latch mechanism. Ok, find an extra washer, extended the striker pin a bit, but wait! The threads on the striker pin are stripped, so now I gotta re-cut them with a die. Awesome...
Ok, finally, everything is mounted up, latch is secure, everythings on, the install has taken 12 hours to complete. I take I-95 to get to work, so the next morning I'm 25 mins into my drive the carrier has decided to open up on it's own on the freeway, great...
So obviously I'm pretty frustrated (ie: fawking pissed) and I call MORE up. I speak to Cody about all the problems and e-mail him pictures of the problems I've had. He's very apologetic and wants to make things right. They are aware of the differences in the 97+ models but unfortunately I ordered their bumper before they found these differences and made the necessarily corrections, because if I had even tried to mount a hi-lift on the tire carrier then the hi-lift would have hit the lift gate!
He ships out a new tire carrier and latch mechanism at no charge to me, which is great. Unfortunately, this model STILL hits the license plate trim piece, so I have to bring out Mr. angle grinder and shave some metal off.
Finally, everything fits, the new latch is much better, and I haven't had any problems in approximately two weeks. I love the latch mechanism on this bumper. The swing arm spindle is massive and uses wheel bearings for a slop free operation. The craftsmanship that's put into this bumper is fantastic, but unfortunately the fit was horrible! I think that this bumper looks better than anything else on the market today, and I love how the tire carrier is recessed into the bumper itself and doesn't interfere with the taillights. Also like how the tire & carrier sit close to the body. I've learned to live with the tail light gaps, which MORE has apparently corrected. MORE's customer service was great, but for the price of the bumper I would've expected every hole to line up, for the bumper to fit better, and to pretty much have a headache-free install.
This thread is in no way meant to bash MORE, but I want people to be aware, especially those with 97+ XJs and are interested in this bumper, of the problems they may encounter. This was easily one of the most frustrating installs I've done on my XJ, I'd rather set up gears again than deal with this bumper. I've ordered other products from MORE with no problems whatsoever, I think they make awesome accessories for a number of Jeep models.
Anyways, here's a few finished pics.
