OutlawMike

Gents,

Curious if there is anyone else on the board who has installed an ARB Bull Bar on a first gen IFS 4Runner (86-89)?

I installed mine last night with an M80000 and ran into a couple of fitment issues.

The bumper is the correct for my model year, as specified by ARB (#3414070). Bought it brand new from 4Wheel Parts. It has two "wing" flanges, I will call them, to the left and right. They are a blade of sheetmetal sticking straight back to the left and right of the center box structure. On my rig, those flanges do not mate up to anything. They did interfere with the front body mount brackets by about 1/8" and needed to be adjusted outward with the dead blow.

The instructions were about as useful as tits on a boar. Damn Australians!! Speak the Queen's English, what is with the Aussie technical slang. All they say is to mount the stock wing brackets to the brackets on the Bull Bar. It does not mention any model year specific variance or interference issues.

I also found out that my Total Chaos Idler Arm uses one of the rear most holes that the Bull Bar wanted to use also. The Total Chaos won the battle and the saws all bit into the Bull Bar. I will fab up a bracket to weld in there later to pick up that hole.

Pictures tonight. The Bull Bar is a beast, to say the least.

sexonwheels

My pickup I believe has the same bumper. Take the old bumper off, wire in the turn signals, mount the ARB bumper...when I did it, it took 45 minutes.

...Mine went on almost too easy but I don't have a winch just yet.

OutlawMike

Dig your rig utilize the wing brackets? An '89 pickup is the next model year, and '89 4Runner is still the old model year. The 4Runner's rolled to the new body style in '90.

Just wondering if that is where the outside brackets where utilized.

Putting a winch in is a bit of a pain. It ended up taking 4 hours with the winch. You have to re-drill the fairlead for the bumper. Then, bolting the winch in there is a painfull experience. Once it is done, it looks great. Getting there is less than fun.

Thanks for the reply,

Mike

sexonwheels

If your refering to the last hole in the set of three on the buttom of each side, then no.

OutlawMike

Actually, no, not those locations. One of those interferred with my Total Chaos Idler Arm.

The bumper has a center box structure that holds the winch and bolts to the bottom of the frame and front cross member in 10 locations. Two of those are the rear most bolt holes that require the eccentric washer. The box structure also bolts to the front side of the crossmember in two locations.

To the left and right of the center box structure are two blades of sheetmetal that stick out from the bumper and have two holes in them. These I refer to as the "wing brackets". On my rig, there is nothing there to bolt to them, they hang in the air. Did your rig use those blades?

I will post pics tonight.

Mike

OutlawMike

Pic below of the bumper. There are two brackets to the right and left of the center box section. They have a large hole in them (material lightening?) and two bolt holes. Those brackets do not get near anything on my rig. Curious if anyone else has seen the same thing?

I'm thinking they are for second gen rigs.

[IMG][/IMG]

4Crawler

iTrader: (3)

The 1st gen 4Runner bumper brackets are on the front of the frame:


the 2nd gens are on the sides of the frame:

OutlawMike

Ahh, there it is, thanks Roger. It would have been nice if the instructions had said that those brackets were not used on the first gen IFS rigs. I had to cut off the small bumper brackets to clear the box stucture, which they also neglected to point out.

All in all, a really nice bumper with really poor instructions.

Thanks again Roger,

Mike

rickcorn

Can you post a pic with the bumper installed? I just purchased one for my 87 4Runner and I'm running into the same issues. Thanks, Rick

'884Runner

I dont have any pics that will do much good but its.pretty much as he described above. You will need to cut off the two small brackets on top of the crossmember. then slide the c channel over the crossmember. then bolt it down. i also had to bend the two side brackets out a little for it to clear. what issue are u running into? where ya from in ga?

Richard

how much are the ARB bumpers , I have an aluminum TJM and it wouldn't take much of a hit to wreck it , I want something stronger , but not looking to get a tube bumper

jgranthevagrant

I'm mounting an ARB bumper to my 1990 pickup. ARB instructions are ˟˟˟˟e. What are the black diamond shaped things for? Anybody have any torque settings for the bolts?