The current crop of diesel trucks has come a long way from the 120hp diesels of yesteryear. The front of your new truck is likely stacked with expensive bits. Not only is there a huge intercooler that would make a drift racer blush, but there’s also likely heat exchangers for the coolant, oil, transmission fluid, and air conditioner.
| The ball joints, track bar bushings, and unit bearings used on the front of Dodge trucks already live a hard enough life under the weight of a Cummins engine. Adding large tires and a 250-pound bumper hanging off the front of your truck will only make matters worse, so be sure to address these components as part of your modifications.
It’s all these coolers that necessitate the large front grilles on the current crop of diesel trucks. But those plastic grilles and flimsy sheetmetal bumpers are all that stand between the lifeblood of your truck and the cruel, unpredictable world. Armed with that knowledge, doesn’t it make sense to protect your investment?
Fab Fours offers rugged bumpers for every - and 1-ton truck produced during the last decade. All its front bumpers are designed to accept a winch, which can prove to be a time-saver on the ranchor a lifesaver when used for recovery. In fact, a growing percentage of Fab Fours business comes from those in the federal and commercial sector looking to protect their trucks from conditions far beyond what most individual owners will encounter.
We recently installed a Fab Fours bumper on an ’06 Dodge Mega Cab with a 6-inch Fabtech suspension lift and 35-inch Interco TrXus STS tires on 18-inch XD Series Hoss wheels. The truck sees plenty of use in rural Colorado and Wyoming, where it is not a matter of if, but when, you will have an errant encounter with a deer, antelope, or elk. After pushing our luck for too long, it was time to take out an insurance policy on our truck in the form of a beefy front winch bumper with an integrated prerunner guard.
Everyone loves the front bumperexcept the truck driver who delivered it. Our new Fab Fours front bumper weighs three times as much as the stock bumper, thanks to its -inch steel-plate construction. The bumper came fully padded and boxed on its own pallet, ensuring that even a vindictive deliveryman couldn’t inflict any damage on the powdercoated finish. In addition to the bumper, the crate also contained all the required components for a complete installation, ruling out any trips to the hardware store. Grade 8 hardware, detailed instructions, turn signals, and foglights come standard with every Fab Fours bumper.
We didn’t bother to ask the delivery guy to stick around and help, but we did invite some friends over to assist with the installation. We recommend you do the same, since hefting the 250-pound bumper into place while attaching the hardware was definitely not a one-person job. An engine hoist is useful as well, and we recommend you learn from our mistake and don’t remove the packaging after you position the bumper so you can align it without marring the finish.
Total installation time was around five hours, working at a leisurely pace and taking plenty of photos along the way. When we were done, we were rewarded with a front end that was not only improved aesthetically, but functionally as well. When you compare the cost of a Fab Fours bumper to replacing sheetmetal, intercoolers, and radiators, it really is a cheap insurance policy.
