Matt's Garage

[hoaxci5]

I'll bring you some beer, should I bring my welder too?

[Matt]

Lol definitely bring the beer... hold off on the welder though. I've already contemplated that but there's just too much that's off, I dont want to chop it all up just yet.

Jons seen the pics and isn't too happy either. Gotta see what he wants to do with it.

This was the fab guys first attempt. It looks like he put the puzzle pieces in the right spots but wasn't aware of some special/critical angles that Doc knew about since he built it from scratch.

[Matt]

Just got status on the UCAs... theyre not shipping until Monday.

Soooo Jacob im all for working on the bumper tomorrow. I think it would be beneficial to Jon too, have another person familiar with XKs to take a look and make sure im not just crazy (or stupid). He said his fab guy swears he put it on his XK with no issues, which i find hard to believe; there's no way frames varied that much XK to XK, and Ron's slid right on without issue as far as i know.

The only thing i'll mess with tonight is grinding away metal so I can get the hatch closed and maybe put the wheel studs into the tire carrier. Maybe get a new drill bit and drill some bigger holes in the frame rails too.

[hoaxci5]

I'll be there with beer (just me) I'm escaping for the day.

[LWM]

Try sliding the bumper on first without worrying about the brackets behind the scene. If the bumper slides in then all we need to do is adjust brackets accordingly. I am good for what ever you decide to do.

[JustinS]

Sucks you're having troubles Matt but you'll get it figured out and it'll be sweet!

[Matt]

Try sliding the bumper on first without worrying about the brackets behind the scene. If the bumper slides in then all we need to do is adjust brackets accordingly. I am good for what ever you decide to do.

The bumper doesn't slide on, has nothing to do with the brackets. When i get it on as far as it will go, these bolts aren't even close to lining up:



I had to grind away at that L-bracket to help raise the bumper up. That got me close but still wasn't enough (i didn't want to grind away too much since that is what's holding everything on after all....



To raise the threads up higher we pulled the bumper back a bit, put my old track bar in the hitch and lifted like hell to "twist" the rear of the bumper upwards. Doing this we were able to just barely get the bolts to thread in.

At that point we used those bolts to "pull" the bumper onto the vehicle as far as it would go and basically wedge it in place (i just tried taking it off... gonna wait for Jacob to lend a hand tomorrow so i dont hurt myself when it releases).

The tailgate also wouldn't close. I had to grind away this area on both sides... it now closes but still touches



This is as good as it's getting, there's absolutely no adjustments/tweaking that can be done, the other brackets aren't hooked up.







Interesting how the sides are on such an angle but the frame rail brackets look pretty straight:



Jacob and I will play with it tomorrow.... But i don't see any physical way to get this thing installed correctly. There's too many angles that need to go the opposite direction, on a rigid assembly.

I've literally installed new struts in less time than i have into trying to get this bumper to fit. No way someone "slid this right on" for a test fit and it was "good".

[Matt]

Before forcing the bumper on as far as it would go by using the hitch bolts, this is the absolute closest I could get both sides to line up.... (this was earlier yesterday, i had a bad feeling but was hoping for the best)





^^In that position, the threaded holes for the hitch bolts aren't even visible through the frame.

[07JeepXK]

I wish I could come and help you out. I would totally cut off that L-bracket that bolts the bumper on to the jeep and do some work to the bumper to lower that bracket and re weld it on slightly angled to help raise the sides of the bumper. Then you would also have to fix the brackets underneath that bolt to the frame rails and angle them a hair and weld them back in. If you have me a few hours, cut off wheel, welder and some steel and this thing would look perfect.

[Matt]

The bracket sits right on the square tube so it cant be lowered very easily. The entire cross brace needs to be modified... but to get to the structural welds to modify it the actual bumper panels need to come off. At that point i'd pretty much be cutting up the entire bumper and custom piecing it back together.

I spent a lot of time this morning trying to find a relatively easy way to make it work; once its in front of you, you start seeing the other problems that really balloon the issue.