How hard is it to swap out your front bumper . . . .

The bumper assembly is three pieces. Its not difficult to remove and replace. When reinstalling, its only difficult trying to tightening the bolts while holding the assembly up at the same time (your fighting gravity and its a little heavy). I had a neighbor hold the assembly in place while tightening the all the bolts... made it super simple. Took 2 hours total I think. 10-20 clips are needed... cant remember the exact number. They come in packs of 20 usually.

 

How difficult is the front and rear bumper disassembly after removing them from the truck? I want to replace the metal bumper blades front and rear, and replace the the upper black piece (vehicle color on many Tacoma pickups, I intend to keep it black) just above the front bumper blade. Part numbers for any plastic clips I may need to replace will help too.

Another question is about the quality of replacement parts. Who makes good ones? Most of my time is in the air cooled VW world and almost all the replacement chrome sucks. Rust in western WA within a year, maybe you get 2 if you wax the hell out of it. My Tacoma is an all weather driver, what I drive when I don't want to drive the ancient VWs. I could go with chrome bumper blades or new blades with the factory metallic gray.

If I restore the factory bumper blades does anyone know what the original metallic gray color is? I haven't even found a name, much less a color number. I was thinking about redoing the originals, preferably in powder coat but possibly painted by a auto body shop with the front given an anti-chip coating. If I do the original base model gray bumpers then I am thinking some similar color gray wheels (charcoal, graphite?). My pickup is silver so it would be a silver/gray/black combo. My other thought is go chrome (if good aftermarket stuff exists, grill and marker lights too) and some shiny wheels. Either way the Tacoma will remain stock height and the wheels chosen will be near stock offset and either 15 inch or 16 inch in diameter.

Thanks for your help!

 

I absolutely hate mine, all those stupid little brackets holding that plastic junk in place. I so wish I could justify dropping the cash on an ARB

 

Like any other project it comes down to where the truck lives.

In theory a simple job here in Pa the first stock bumper removal lets just say after 2 hours I got serious and brought out the Hot Wrench 15 minutes later it was on the ground .

FYI even the Irwin rounded fastner sockets would not fit.

Lesson learned I don`t even try and unbolt things exposed to our winters.