Video Review & Installation

Merideth: This DV8 FS-15 hammer forged stubby front bumper will be for the '07 to '18 JK owners looking for a frontend upgrade. This will help with approach angles on the trail and will come with all the basic options that you want out of a front bumper, like recovery points, protection, and lighting options. Installing this will be a direct bolt-on at one out of three wrenches on the difficulty meter, and we'll show you how to do that in just a minute.Like I mentioned, stubby bumpers are beneficial in a couple of different ways. Now, in comparison to a full-width or a mid-width front bumper, you won't be getting all of that big protection in the front from any collision for your tires but it will provide good approach angles and tire clearance on the trail, unlike a full-width bumper. Also, unlike a full-width or a mid-width, this will be half the weight since you really only have the front section to deal with.Nonetheless, this will be made of quarter-inch and three-sixteenth inch steel, with a textured black powder coat finish to resist any rust or corrosion, making this thing heavy duty. I personally think this will be one of the best-looking stubby front bumpers that we have with how it's designed. And like I mentioned before, you are getting some standard options out of this.You will have holes in the front to accept all the OEM fog lights, as well as a bull bar with two tabs on the top for mounting any accessory lighting. This will also come with two welded D-Ring mounts, and a winch plate capable to accept a winch up to 12,000 pounds. And lastly, you have the protection of the bull bar up top that's gusseted with the DV8 plating for reinforcement and some extra style.For a stubby front bumper, this will be at a pretty average price point, and for what this comes with, I think it's pretty fair for all the options that you're getting. This will be about $420 at the moment, and with the stubby front bumper range ranging anywhere from $250, all the way up to $1,000. Usually, when you go down in place, you're not getting as many options, like fog lights or bull bars, or even options for a winch plate. On the other hand, once you get up there in price, you'll be seeing most those options that this has, but with lighter material, bigger frontend protection like a full stinger or a grille guard, as well as drop in winch plates.With most of these bumpers, you'll have to mix and match with the options that you want. However, I think this has a lot those basic options that a lot of those don't have at a great price. Like I mentioned, install will be a 1 out of 3 wrenches on the difficulty meter since it's completely bolt-on. And now we can pull the jeep into the shop and show you how we bolt this up.Man: We're gonna begin this installation by removing the factory bumper. The first step, we're gonna remove this plastic air dam underneath. So have four of these clips up front. You can use a pair of pliers, and you just wanna pull the needle out and then that clip will release. So we're gonna do that to all four of these, then we're gonna get the two on the backside.Now, there's two of these on the backside. There's one on either end. We're gonna do the same thing. Just grab it, pull the center out, and that'll release it. So now that we have the plastic shroud off the bottom, we're gonna take this upper piece off. There's two push pins, one on either side. You're gonna pry up on the center on of them to release them, and then we'll remove it.So, once you have those two pins out, you can slide it to the side and pull it all the way out. So with that plastic piece off, gives you a little extra room to work in there. There's four nuts on either side, two on the inside, two on the outside. You can get to the center ones from the top pretty easily. The outside ones, you can get from the bottom. So we're gonna go ahead and take those off. We're gonna use an 18-millimeter socket to remove these nuts.So now we have all the nuts off for the bumper. But before we pull the bumper completely off, you wanna disconnect the fog light harness as well. So we're gonna squeeze our clip and unplug that, and then we wanna just get this harness off of the bumper. So there are a couple zip ties that you'll need to cut off. So, we're gonna just lift the bumper up and off to remove it.So if your jeep came with factory fog lights, you can actually remove those and install them in the DV8 bumper. So we're gonna do that right now. To remove the stock fog lights, you're gonna need a Phillips-head screwdriver.So now that we have the fog lights out, we're gonna assemble those into the new bumper. DV8 provides us with new hardware, so you won't need to reuse the old hardware. We're just gonna install these clips on each one of these holes. And once you have all four of your clips on, we're gonna go ahead and fit the fog light in there, and then we're gonna use our new screws. And we'll go ahead and screw those in.Same thing with the other side, we wanna install all four of our clips. Then we're gonna insert our fog light. So now that we have the fog lights assembled in the bumper, out hardware is ready, we're ready to put this on and then bolt it up. So we're gonna lift it up, make sure that our studs stick through the frame, then we're gonna go underneath and start getting this bolted on.So now that we have the bumper on, we're ready to start putting the hardware on. For the two outside bolts we're gonna put a flat washer, then we're gonna do a lock washer on each, and then we're gonna install the nut. For these two nuts, there's gonna be different sizes. The bottom one is a slightly larger nut. It's gonna use a 19-millimeter socket, and the upper one is gonna use a 16-millimeter socket.For the lower stud, we're gonna use a washer, a lock washer, and one of the larger nuts. And for the upper hole, you're gonna need to install a bolt. We're gonna do a bolt, a lock washer, and a washer. Same thing for the other side. The lower stud is gonna get a flat washer, a lock washer, and one of the larger nuts. And then we're gonna do a bolt up top on the inside with a lock washer and a flat washer. And same thing for the two outside, so lower one is gonna use the larger flat washer, lock washer, and nut. And then the upper one is gonna use a flat washer, a lock washer, and the slightly smaller nut.So after you have all the hardware in, we're gonna go around and tighten them all up. So we're gonna use a 19-millimeter socket to tighten the bottom one. I'm gonna use the 16 for the top one. Same thing for the other outside, the lower one is gonna use a 19-millimeter and the upper is gonna use a 16-millimeter. For our bolt up top, we're gonna use an 18-millimeter. And last but not least, we're going to plug our fog lights back in.Now, DV8 does supply a winch plate. So if you do have a witch or you're looking to get a winch, you'll have the hardware to install that. However, with everything tightened up, that wraps up our review and install. Check out more at extremeterrain.com.