Installing a Dual Swingout CBI Outback Rear Bumper

March 14–15, 2018.

There is perhaps nothing that changes the look of a truck more than adding a swing-out rear bumper. Sure, you can argue for bigger tires or lift or a front bumper, but in my mind, none of those things compare to the entirely new footprint that a rear-swing-out brings, what with the spare tire and jerry can mounts that add two additional feet to the length of your truck.

But as usual, I’m jumping into the middle of the story. Let’s back up a bit.

Since starting to really build out the truck for adventuring, I’ve known that there were somethings that were required — sliders, skids, better suspension — just to make the truck capable of taking us to the places we wanted to go. Then, there were things that I knew were valuable — the Relentless front bumper (with Warn M8000 winch), bigger tires, and ARB air compressor — to make trips easier and safer. And then of course, there are creature comforts — things like the CVT tent, and the ARB 50qt Fridge that is a life-changer.

Naturally, a lot of these things also fall into the “cool factor” category as well. You can get a lot of mall-crawler-expo-points for this stuff, even if you never hit the trail.

But you’ll be missing the best part — the adventure!

As our adventures have gotten longer and more remote, I wasn’t really sure where a rear bumper fit in. Expo points and creature comfort for sure — it’d look bad-ass, and be nice to have some fold down tables in camp; but it wasn’t really necessary — I mean, we’ve gotten along fine without it until now… And then, last November, I finally convinced myself that while it’d never really be necessary, it was something that would be valuable. Two reasons: first, it allows easier access to the spare tire (imagine trying to get the one under the bed when you’re in the middle of an obstacle, on a shelf road), and even the option to carry two spares when on the trail. Second, it will give us a good place to carry more spare fuel, something that will allow us to run trips that we’ve not done to this point.

So, with Black Friday 2017 approaching, I made a list of requirements and researched my options (explained in a future post) and ultimately decided that a CBI Outback 1.0 with dual-swingout was the direction I was going to go. And then I patiently waited for what I hoped would be the awesomest deal ever from @CBI Offroad Fab. The deal turned out to be more meh than mind-blowing (it was ~7% off; still nothing to complain about) and I placed the order for my bumper.

And then I waited. Naturally there was some waiting because CBI had to build the bumper, but I also figured that if I picked up the bumper from CBI in Idaho Falls, I could also get a cool trip out of the situation as well. And that meant waiting for some better weather than middle-of-winter, which is when CBI let me know that the bumper was ready for pickup.

And then, opportunity knocked. Actually, Ben @m3bassman posted that he was heading to Utah for a long weekend, and asked if we could make it. Turned out we could, and the timing was perfect to head down to CBI the day before (only a few hours out of the way) to grab the bumper.

With a couple weeks to get ready, the first order of business was to remove the stock bumper and tow hitch, since I’d have nowhere to put them once I installed the new bumper (the bed would be full of our adventure gear for the trip, and I didn’t want them bouncing around back there anyway, getting all scratched up).

So, I got my last look at the stock bumper and then pulled it off — a relatively easy process that involves (normally) removing the license plate lighting (which twists out, no need to unclip), unbolting 4 bolts (two on each side of the frame), and pulling off the bumper and tow receiver.

The lights and bolts came out easily enough (I’ve been lucky with a complete lack of seizing of any bolts so far), and the bumper slid right off. But as I’d removed the bolts, I’d noticed that when the dealer installed the tow receiver, they’d kindly welded the receiver to the frame. Not what I’d have expected, but the welds looked good, and they actually made everything easier, since I didn’t need to worry about juggling removal of both the bumper and receiver at the same time.

Of course, that meant I needed to cut the receiver off — hopefully salvaging it so I could resell it to offset the cost of the new bumper. To see how that went, check out the rest of the story — Installing a Dual Swing-out Bumper at adventuretaco.com.

Originally published at adventuretaco.com.