Aftermarket Bumpers or Fender Flares for '08 - Crash Repair

livetofishnj · **Joined:** Thu Feb 28, 2013 10:20 pm **Posts:** 5

Have an 08 Liberty and hooked the bumper backing out of a spot. In NJ so trying to decide if I should fix it myself or go through insurance and pay twice the value of the repairs in higher premiums, plus have an accident on the record for the vehicle which costs big on the trade or sale.

Right front bumper cover pulled forward and popped all of the flare rivets. Bumper cover will need paint and then the whole front end needs to come apart and reassembled correctly to fix the places where it was pulled out of whack. The small bracket on the end of the stamped bumper assembly is also bent so the flare won't line up and clip back in. Grille and fender are fine.

I am wondering if anyone could point me towards replacement assemblies for the front bumper as well as aftermarket flares if they make them. I looked around but google didn't get me anything but OEM. If possible I would love to upgrade with a front receiver for a cooler rack. Anything out there? Might rather upgrade rather than eat insurance for stock replacements.

lfhoward · **Posted:** Thu Feb 28, 2013 10:51 pm

Hello again! It sounds like the incident didn't damage any of the internals (like the metal crossmember) and is limited just to the plastic fascia and the plastic rivets. If that's so, it wouldn't be too hard to fix. Some pics of the carnage would be helpful.

Diggerfreek did a great writeup on how to remove and reinstall the front bumper.
http://www.lostjeeps.com/forum/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=104&t=41683
I removed my bumper when I installed my KJ tow hooks. It's not too bad if you follow Digger's directions. They'll give you an idea of where the hidden fasteners are and how to remove them to get the bumper off (or how to put them back on).

If your bumper is salvageable, you might be able to reattach it. New clips and fasteners are available from Mopar and can be bought online or at the Jeep dealer if yours are trashed. (So is a new bumper skin for that matter.) The MOPAR parts manual with all the part numbers can be downloaded here:
http://www.lostjeeps.com/forum/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=104&t=42849

On the other hand, a junkyard might have what you need if you can find a KK that wasn't involved in a head-on collision.

Let us know how it works out! --LFH

livetofishnj · **Joined:** Thu Feb 28, 2013 10:20 pm **Posts:** 5

There is a little clip on the sub frame or the bumper, it looks like one rivet and a couple tangs hold it. That bent forward which is keeping the bumper from sitting back all the way. That is keeping the rivets from lining up on the flare. I could easily pull the cover and flares, drop them off at the body shop we work with at my job and put it back together without too much cost. The problem is that I really don't have the time to do it.

Also, to do it right I will have to remove the whole bumper cover and right flare. If I am going to to the R&R on the parts then now would be a good time to look at replacing the front bumper with a receiver or at least something solid enough to attach rod holders.

livetofishnj · **Joined:** Thu Feb 28, 2013 10:20 pm **Posts:** 5

And it was Digger's tutorial that brought me here. I also looked at his list of aftermarket parts but didn't see what I ws looking for

lfhoward · **Posted:** Thu Feb 28, 2013 11:23 pm

Cool, there are options for that too. There is a member named AtTheHelm who is a welder and is making aftermarket steel KK bumpers (front and rear). He has a number of orders on deck, but if you could live with your tweaked bumper for a while, his work would be worth the wait.

Here are AtTheHelm's build threads:
Front steel bumper: http://www.lostjeeps.com/forum/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=88&t=70678
Front recovery/receiver for OEM bumper: http://www.lostjeeps.com/forum/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=88&t=74055
Rear steel bumper: http://www.lostjeeps.com/forum/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=88&t=72433

A company called Rock Lizard Fabrications may be offering steel KK bumpers soon as well. They are closed temporarily for reorganization but will be reopening sometime soon. Their website with pics of their products is: http://www.rocklizardfabrications.com/

Best, --LFH

Bmxer524 · **Posted:** Tue Apr 30, 2013 1:38 pm

Rock Lizard is open and they are selling KK bumpers(only for April though). Only thing is you can't see what it looks like yet, but it's supposed to look similar to the KJ bumper.

mawlkrawler · **Posted:** Thu Jun 13, 2013 6:20 pm

Does anyone at all have a pic of the RL KK bumper ?

Sent from my iPhone 5

Bmxer524 · **Posted:** Sat Jun 15, 2013 3:07 am

mawlkrawler wrote:

Does anyone at all have a pic of the RL KK bumper ?

Sent from my iPhone 5

You can try emailing them, they might be able to help. Idk for sure, but I think a certain member here might have 1. Haven't seen him in a while, and haven't seen his KK since he posted teaser pics on facebook a while ago

Wearyman · **Joined:** Mon Aug 22, 2011 2:01 pm **Posts:** 161

mawlkrawler wrote:

Does anyone at all have a pic of the RL KK bumper ?

Sent from my iPhone 5

Pics are up on the rocklizard site, but let me link them too:

Personally, and this is just my opinion;

While I'm sure that they are very well made, and they appear to be finished very nicely, the fact that they did not in any way respect the turn signal light setup or the proper lines of the OEM bumper when mating with the body of the Liberty shows an utter disregard for what a KK is.

It is very clear just by looking at the side view that they decided to cut corners by using the exisitng KJ bumper, cutting off the top outer corners and welding on a filler block for the KK turn signal location.

While I'm sure it is a very good bumper, and the extra towpoints in front and the pre-fab winch mounting location are great, those side ears are just so awful it ruins the whole bumper. Those need to be fixed ASAP to be an OEM match if for no other reason than to show the KK the respect it deserves.

tommudd · **Posted:** Tue Jul 16, 2013 7:07 pm

To me it looks better than having those huge ugly KK turns up there, cleans the front end up more. The headlights and turns are two things a lot don't like about the front ends of the KKs
PLUS it keeps all of the RL bumpers looking the same pretty much, .................

Wearyman · **Joined:** Mon Aug 22, 2011 2:01 pm **Posts:** 161

tommudd wrote:

:POPCORN:
To me it looks better than having those huge ugly KK turns up there, cleans the front end up more. The headlights and turns are two things a lot don't like about the front ends of the KKs
PLUS it keeps all of the RL bumpers looking the same pretty much, .................

Heh, yeah that's the thing about taste. Everybody's is different. And that's a good thing.

I just think that those big blank Mickey Mouse ears look weird. I mean, you KNOW there is supposed to be a turn signal there, so it just looks odd to have a blank spot where they are supposed to be. Not to mention the line of the fender is still disturbed so you get that big hunk out of it. You just have a big flat blank spot there for no discernible reason. Its strange looking.

I guess I can see doing it the way they did if machining the signal blank in was too hard. Maybe they are only tooled up for those oval holes. In that case they should have just left the "ears" off. Better to have a flat bumper that you can trim nice and close around leaving the original signal area intact (might have to pop rivet it in place on the inside of the fender, but how hard is that really?). I dunno. Maybe you could take a Dremel to them and cut out the turn signal slot, but for $850, I shouldn't have to mod the darn thing to make it look like it was meant to go with the vehicle.

I guess that I just feel that aftermarket parts should try to adhere to and blend with the stock look even while they may alter some of the lines of the vehicle. The very best aftermarket gear looks OEM. This does not. Let's face it: If Chrysler made an aftermarket steel bumper for the Liberty, you can be sure that it would have the turn signals in the stock location. Because this bumper doesn't have them it looks odd. Not bad, per se. Just... Odd.

Maybe if the blank spots had the "step" in them that the OEM bumper has they wouldn't stick out so badly. They just flow so poorly. The angle is all wrong, the footprint is wrong, they are just plain WRONG. I'm not going to be able to get past it. And it sucks because I was really looking forward to this bumper.

EDIT:

Just an addendum; I was under the impression that MtnLvr was the guy helping design this thing. But if you look at his designs:

They look NOTHING like the RLF bumper. It certainly seems that if he was at any point part of the design process, he was either cut out of it early on, or had his ideas pushed aside by the owners of RLF. His bumper was a three piece design that very closely matched the OEM pattern, right down to re-using the existing turn signals. His bumper also included a very nice skid plate, not just a bumper. So this bumper is lesser in almost every way.

SECOND EDIT:

How come the Aussies can make a proper OEM-esque steel bumper and we Americans can't?

Oh well, I guess that's $850 I can keep in my pocket.

tommudd · **Posted:** Thu Jul 18, 2013 7:35 am

and all Wrangler bumpers look just like the stock ones as well,.............................right? :wink:

MtnLvr helped design Rock Lizards????????? How did you come up with that?
Plus part of designing replacement parts is to have something that is different and unique, if they all looked stock why change out the original

Mikzor · **Joined:** Fri Feb 03, 2012 7:28 pm **Posts:** 64

Yep I agree with Wearyman. I like the look of the actual RL bar alot and am really keen to see what they do with the rear bar but those blanks in the turn signals just look crap.

I much prefer the design of the Australian "Uneek4x4" bar.(Which I own) as it follows the lines of the car better. Even AtTheHelm and his bar have a better solution for the turn signals and comes up looking good!

tommudd · **Posted:** Thu Jul 18, 2013 9:49 am

Glad I didn't post up my true thoughts on that Aussie bumper :-)r

Wearyman · **Joined:** Mon Aug 22, 2011 2:01 pm **Posts:** 161

tommudd wrote:

:ROTFL:
Glad I didn't post up my true thoughts on that Aussie bumper :-)r

lol! Yeah, it has issues of it's own. (Mostly due to it being so frigging HUUUUUUGE because they wanted to enclose the winch) But it does get the turn signal lights right.

As far as MtnLvr being involved, I think I must have inferrred that because the last mention of the RLF bumper was IN the thread for MtnLvr's bumper. So that was my error. Certainly does explain the wide difference in looks.

Regardless, my later point about it being possible to include the light mount points still stands. We can see it's possible. Why not have them available?

Aftermarket Bumpers or Fender Flares for '08 - Crash Repair

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