Marlin Front Bumper Install How-to on my 85

[KDXSR5]

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So, I got a Marlin front bumper for Christmas. I got it around the middle of December, and had it powder coated to match my rear Marlin bumper. Then my truck was hit and run in the school parking lot, and the stock plastic corner got ripped off of the passenger side. My hood was also pushed up, I have a pic of that after I worked on it for five minutes. I decided to finally put the bumper on, as well as my header (see my header topic for that) So here goes the How-to.

Here is the truck with the stock bumper and brackets pulled off.




Here is the stock bumper I pulled off.




Damage left from hit and run after a little work on it. It is now almost non existant.




First thing to do to the Marlin bumper was transfer over the little turn signal mounts from the stock bumper. I ended up wrapping electrical tape around the mounts because the mounts didn't quite click on, I am assuming because of the powder coating.




The next thing I did was mount the turn signals onto the bumper. To do that, the lights switch sides, and one of the plastic extensions has to be cut off of the light so it will mount flush.






And the bumper was ready to go on!




But the truck was not ready for the bumper yet. The brackets that hold on the stock black plastic corner deals needed to be removed. I am going to guess that some people just cut them off flush with the fender, but I wanted to keep them in one piece. To do this, I had to loosen the black inner fender, so I could slide the bracket out.




I had to remove the battery to get to the bolt on the passenger side.




On the driver side, I had to remove the air box to get to the bolt.






I then tapped out all of the bolt holes so I wouldn't mess up any bolt threads.




Earlier, I had bought washers so the bolts would not scratch up the powder coating.




I then held up the bumper and put some bolts in it. I put all the bolts in loosely, then tightened them down. The big bolts I torqued to 55 ft-lbs and the small bolts to 35 ft-lbs. I was not able to get the upper two bolts in that mount into a welded on bracket with welded on nuts on the bumper at the time, so I just left those out. Then I was done. Sorry about the food mess, but I was hungry.






I am very happy with the results. It gives the truck a new look, not to mention about 20 times the protection as before. The quality is very high, and I would definitely buy this product again. Getting those brackets off was a little bit more involved than I had planned, but other than that, the install was very easy. We will see what happens to the next hat that tries to do a hit and run.

[46&2]

Nice. Looks a lot better with the new Marlin

[MiniSimp]

Nice work!

[Wermz84]

[All_Set]

Add one more picture with the truck outside durning the day so I can see the bumper better! 

I've always liked that bumper. 

How many inches is there between your crome plastic grill to the front of the bumper where your licience plate mounts?  Looks to be a good 12 - 18 inches??

[KDXSR5]

I will take an outside pic eventually, I may even have one on my camera with it sitting in my driveway. Do you want the measurement from the grille to the winch fairlead mount? Is that what you are asking for? You confused me a little. If so I will go measure it, we recently got dumped on by the snow Gods, so I will have to unbury it, then I will measure it for ya.

[KDXSR5]

Outside pic, not wheeling, but not in a dark shop.

[Wermz84]

Man those bumpers sure do look good!

[KDXSR5]

Yeah, I like it! It wont get bent and ripped off while busting through drifts (like the stock stuff)! Now the licence plate... thats a different story.

[KDXSR5]

Figured I would throw some more pics up just because. The next day I moved the licence plate down onto the front crossmember, it was starting to anger me mounted on the winch plate like that. Hope you enjoy.

[REG535]

looks good i am just trying to imagine what it would look like without the stinger, i like that bumper on your toy for sure. 

[solar86yota]

Love that bumper!!!!

[KDXSR5]

looks good i am just trying to imagine what it would look like without the stinger, i like that bumper on your toy for sure. 

Love that bumper!!!!

Thanks, yes its very nice. Please try to keep this thread clutter free (not saying you guys did anything wrong, I just don't want a thread full of bs) Thanks.

[KDXSR5]

Ok, I finally finished my bumper install.


As you can see, the hole does not line up on this tab on my bumper. It is the same situation on both sides. I used a soapstone metal marking device to draw where I needed to cut out:






I cut it out using a drill bit and a lot of time. It took FOREVER to get both sides done (notice the body mount is taken out and the small bolt on the leaf spring hanger setup is removed so I wont damage them):




A bolt now fits (This is obviously not the bolt from my Marlin bolt kit, I lost those. These bolts are rear shock mount bolts off of a 1990 toyota. They work perfectly):

[Saphteemon]

I too had the same problem with those top mounts.....did the same....otherwise i like the bumper alot......I mounted a warn 9.5 winch on mine.....one other comment is that there's no suitable front license plate.....

[KDXSR5]

Yeah, I relocated it down onto the front crossmember as seen in this picture. I used a couple bolts ran through the crossmember with some washers and such. I am just waiting for the bottom half of my license plate to be ripped off because it gets rammed into just about everything while wheeling. Oh well, it just means no one can read it to call me in for driving poorly.





And in one piece before the teardown witnessed above