How to feed inner bracket bolts for rear bumper replacement

Jumboneil

New Member
Joined
Jun 20, 2021
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7
Location
Toronto
Hi all,

I just bought a new Rugged Ridge tubular rear bumper, and thought I’d share this solution to getting the additional bolts through the drilled cross member. I was replacing an old Smittybilt that had rusted quite a bit with our Canadian winter salt, it’s brackets were a bit different so I couldn’t just unbolt/bolt on/replace….such a fidgety small area to get the bolt behind and through the cross member when you have fat middle-aged fingers…..

Wire coat hangar to the rescue….

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another trick we would use on airplanes was to put a drop of super glue on the end and attach a piece of weed eater cord to it. feed the cord through the hole and pull the bolt through the hole. feed the nut down the cord and start it onto the threads. then just give it a good snatch to remove the cord !
 
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another trick we would use on airplanes was to put a drop of super glue on the end and attach a piece of weed eater cord to it. feed the cord through the hole and pull the bolt through the hole. feed the nut down the cord and start it onto the threads. then just give it a good snatch to remove the cord !
I’ll have to try that. My bumper is so supposed to mount to the frame. Way too tight to even fit a wrench
 
Hi all,

I just bought a new Rugged Ridge tubular rear bumper, and thought I’d share this solution to getting the additional bolts through the drilled cross member. I was replacing an old Smittybilt that had rusted quite a bit with our Canadian winter salt, it’s brackets were a bit different so I couldn’t just unbolt/bolt on/replace….such a fidgety small area to get the bolt behind and through the cross member when you have fat middle-aged fingers…..

Wire coat hangar to the rescue….

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View attachment 261314
where did you get that fabulous jump suit
 
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use a long slim box end wrench with some masking tape on 1 side to stick the nut to it.

why are the bolts going inside.? makes it all that much harder and you have a fat nut and bare threads exposed. you don't really want those buggered up if you back into something..