Deegan 38 Rear Bumper with Tire Carrier (07-18 Jeep Wrangler JK)

Video Review & Installation

When it comes to shopping for a rear bumper and tire carrier for your '07 to '18 JK, there are a bunch of options to choose from. This option by Deegan 38 is for the JK owner looking to give the rear end of their JK a huge upgrade in form and function. This is gonna provide some solid rear-end protection, have extra lighting options for more visibility, and will carry up to a 37-inch tire. With that, this will create a pretty badass look and will match with any HD front bumper or any Deegan 38 parts that you already have outfitted on your JK. As for the install, guys, this is gonna be a two out of three wrenches on the difficulty meter, and I'll show you how to do that in just a minute. This full-width rear bumper and tire carrier are both made of heavy-duty steel with a two-stage textured black powder coat finish. So they're both gonna provide some good protection and rust resistance to the back end of your JK.Like I mentioned, this will be able to fit up to a 37-inch tire and comes with recovery points like the 2-inch hitch receiver and two D-ring mounts that will really help out on the trail. This bumper also has an option of adding two floodlights onto each end of the rear bumper for extra visibility and some added style. Outside of the light cutouts will be riveted accents for aggressive styling and not to mention the Deegan 38 shield to finish it all. At $800, this rear bumper and tire carrier is at a pretty average price point.Bumpers with tire carriers can range anywhere from $600 all the way up to $1,500, so with this being right in the middle with as many options as it has, including three recovery points, options for extra lighting, and an aggressive build, I think that this is a pretty good investment. Not to mention the extra lighting is only about $150 more, and it's made by KC HiLiTES, which is definitely a brand that you can count on. Like I mentioned, guys, this is gonna be a two out of three wrenches on the difficulty meter, and I'll show you how I took it from stock to what you see here.The tools that we use for our install are a grease gun, a 1/2-inch ratchet, a 3/8-inch ratchet, a 1/4-inch ratchet, an assortment of wrenches, an assortment of sockets, a 35-millimeter socket, needle-nose pliers, a 5/32 Allen socket, a T20 Torx bit, the provided Allen key, and a rubber mallet. So now that we're over at the Jeep, we can go ahead and install our new rear bumper and tire carrier. But first, we have to remove our stock ones. So to give ourselves some more room, we're gonna remove our spare tire with a 19-millimeter deep socket.So after we have our spare tire off, we can remove our spare tire carrier. It's gonna be eight 13-millimeter bolts.Now that we're finished with our spare tire carrier, we can move on down to the bumper. It's gonna be the same 13-millimeter socket we're using, and they're gonna be two bolts holding on the bumper on each side. And you can do the same for the other side.So this bumper does come with a hitch receiver as well as four long 18-millimeter bolts that come with it. I would recommend if you are putting this on, that you put this on before the bumper because you will have a lot more room to work with.So in order to attach our rear bumper, we need to insert our nut plates inside of the frame to attach on either side. These will line up with the holes in your frame. Before we fully install our bumper, we need to install the shaft that's gonna be holding the tire carrier with the four provided 18-millimeter bolts.Before we install our bumper, we're also gonna install our latch brackets so it's easier to get to while it's off of the Jeep. So we're gonna take our 16-millimeter bolts, and our washers, and install them in the three holes. Then we have a lock nut on the other side, that is a 17-millimeter. So you wanna make sure that you are not tightening these down all the way because once we get to the end where we do attach our tire carrier, we need to be able to adjust this back and forth so it fits correctly. So while we still have the bumper off of the Jeep, if you did get the option of the two floodlights, you can go ahead and install those now, but we're gonna go ahead and mount up our bumper.So attaching our bumper we're going to use our 15-millimeter bolts to attach them in the stock location. Once those are attached, we can grab our hardware that's gonna be attached to our nut plate, and tighten those down with an 18-millimeter socket.So now we're ready to install our races and our bearings inside of our tire carrier. Our race is already inside we just have to press that in. And you wanna use something that's the diameter of the race. We're gonna use an exhaust spacer. But if you have a socket the same size available, you can use that.Now we can flip the tire carrier over and install our smaller race for our top bearing. Now that our race is set, we can pack our bearing with grease and install our washer and seal before actually installing it on our bumper. And get enough grease to where you can put it around the bearing. And you wanna make sure that it goes through each bearing. And push it down so that it's coming out the other side.You wanna make sure that you spin it around to make sure it's on all of the roller bearings. Now we can insert our bearing inside of the race, and then we can insert our washer and our seal. Now, once your washer and your seal is in place, you're gonna go ahead and press it in. Before we attach our spare tire carrier onto our bumper, we need to attach the spacer and the provided 3M tape. Now we gonna attach our tire carrier.Now that our tire carrier is on, we can go ahead and install our race for the top. There you go. And you just wanna make sure that it's seated properly in there. And now we can go ahead and install our bearing. Before placing our bearing in the tire carrier, we're gonna pack it with some grease. And just like we did the other bearing, just gonna place it on top and pack it in. And again, you just wanna make sure that the grease is packed in enough where it's coming out the other side and you wanna wiggle it around to make sure that the bearings are all greased up. Once it's completely packed, we can move over and install it in our tire carrier.Now you can place your bearing inside your race and make sure that that seats properly as well. Now that our bearing is seated properly, we can install our small washer and thread on our nut. Once the castle nut is threaded on, you can take a 35-millimeter socket and tighten it down. Once your nut is tightened down, then you can insert your cotter pin, make sure that's set into place. And then you can take your set screw and install that in the middle. After the set screw is installed over the cotter pin, you can install your dust cap.Now we can attach our spare tire carrier handle. We're gonna use the two 16-millimeter bolts. You're gonna place your 17-millimeter lock nut on the back and tighten those down.Now we're gonna attach the bracket that holds our spare tire carrier mount with the supplied hardware. So I recommend measuring on where you mount this so you have enough clearance to where it clears your bumper for those larger tires.So now we can attach our mount that's gonna be holding our tire. So I would recommend that you measure your wheel's backspacing. If you have a stock wheel, you're gonna have a lot more of a shallow backspacing than you would an aftermarket wheel. So that definitely will depend, and you can adjust it on these sliders here. So you're gonna install this using the same hardware. And we're gonna use the same 19-millimeter wrench and 18-millimeter socket that we did in the last step.After the tire mount is on, we can install our bump stop brackets. This is gonna be the longer provided hardware, but this will be the same socket and wrench size that we used. And these will be adjustable as well, depending on your bump stop. Then you can repeat the same step on the other side. So once our rear bumper and tire carrier are installed, now it's time that we can swap over our third brake light using a T20 Torx bit. You're gonna remove the four back Torx bolts.Before we swap over our actual third brake light, we have to assemble our bracket. So you're gonna use the provided Allen head screws and a 5/32 Allen socket, or you can use the provided Allen key. And just like mostly everything on the tire carrier, this will also be adjustable. You can take a 10-millimeter wrench, and your 5/32 Allen key or the provided Allen key. And once you get everything tightened and snug, you can go ahead and adjust it. But it will move around on you. After the bracket's assembled, we can finally install our stock third brake light with the stock hardware.After this is assembled, we can install this on our tire carrier. You're gonna install it on the top with the provided hardware. So once the lock nuts are threaded on, you can tighten them down with a 16-millimeter socket and a 17-millimeter wrench.So one of our last steps after really everything is assembled is attaching our accent bracket where our floodlight or our mesh insert would be. So you're gonna use your provided stainless hardware and a 5/32 Allen socket, or you can use the provided Allen key.So now that everything is adjusted and aligned, we're gonna go ahead and tighten everything down, starting with the latch receiver. After everything's tightened down, we can go ahead and reinstall our spare tire. After your spare tire is on and tightened down, then you're all set to go.That's it for my review and install on the Deegan 38 Rear Bumper and Tire Carrier. For more videos like this, keep it right here at extremetrain.com.