REAL SWINGER

Oversized tires and heavy wheels can wreak havoc on stock tire carriers.

- Christian Sturtz

The additional weight can break the carrier itself or ruin the tailgate. Thankfully, KD Fabworks makes full replacement heavy-duty rear bumpers with swing-out tire mounts for Jeep TJ/LJ applications. Standard features on the bumper include D-ring mounts, a 2 receiver, a tapered roller bearing pivot, frame tie-in brackets, a grade 8 hardware kit with optional high lift mount, and a third brake light license plate holder. (Figure 1)

In a normal install, you would start by removing the original rear bumper and tire carrier. Removal is pretty straight forward- the bumper has two nuts on each side and two bolts that come up from the bottom. Four bolts hold on the tire carrier, but you have to remove the third brake light housing to get to some of them. You also have to cut and cap off, or wrap-up, the third brake light wires. This Jeep had no bumper, so none of this was necessary for our application.

To start our install, we removed the rear cab mount bolts completely and loosened the other four cab mount bolts on both sides. The rear corner was jacked up, and cab mounts were removed. We slid the new bumper into place, the cab mount was replaced through the bumper into the frame, and we lowered the cab. Finally, we marked the six additional mounting holes for the new bumper. We tried to cut down a pencil and mark the inboard outer bolt holes. No luck! Hands wouldn’t fit. We ended up having to measure these out. (Figure 2)