Reviews for ARB Rear Modular Bumper & Swing Away Wheel Carrier in Black for 97-06 Jeep Wrangler TJ
I have an ARB front bumper, so I know the quality.
Arb makes an extremely high quality rear bumper and swing away wheel carrier. Bumper has painted black finish and thick metal construction. Tough stuff and heavy duty. Only negative comment would be the installation instructions are poorly written and pictures are black and white with poor resolution. Frustrating install but would do it all again considering the result. Next buy is the Arb front bumper!
Installed this bumper/carrier on my ‘94 YJ. It is very good quality, looks good, and I love the single action of opening with the tailgate. My favorite part of the bumper is the huge flat face where the receiver is. I used that space to mount Baja Designs S1 reverse lights, and I also added a combo 4-way & 7-way trailer plug. Love the added functionality.
It loses a star because the instructions were terrible, listing steps for a JK, switching back to TJ, etc. The included instructions are different from the ones online too, so don’t go with the online ones. The included ones are black and white. For the price you’d think they can at least afford color ink printing.
They have changed this product a few times, I am guessing to consolidate it down to less parts to fit more vehicles. The tailgate plate is different than older instruction pictures show. It does work fine on my YJ but due to YJ tailgate bolt holes being further to the left than a TJ, I can open my tailgate 90 degrees but the tire carrier won’t go that far. This means they I can not use the locking pin on the spindle to lock the carrier open.
Anyways, the install sucked and took me a while but I also decided to take care of other stuff while I was in there. I dropped the gas tank which made getting the bumper bolts all in place MUCH easier. I didn’t mess with the nut plates or the wands to guide them into the frame at all. I did have considerable trouble with the spindle bushings. The lower is the tapered one and it went fine. The upper one I initially broke. No matter how much soft or hard hammering I did, it would not go into the tube and it ended up eventually cracking. I had to order another from ARB (they sent it for free, thanks ARB!) but that took 2-3 months. The second one also didn’t fit so my sleeve must behave been built too tight. I ground out the inside of the sleeve just slightly and the bushing went right in. The aluminum spindle cap still fits perfectly and was resistant to hammer in, so I didn’t remove too much material with the grinder thankfully.
Some pointers:
-consider dropping the tank to get full access to the bolts for the bumper
-make sure tailgate is level and shuts properly with no weight on it (if you don’t, it will not pivot very smoothly with the carrier and it will be difficult to shut as the tire carrier basically puts no weight on it)
-don’t tighten the adjustment bolts until it all operates smoothly...these would be the adjustment tube, jam nuts for adjustment tube, and the 4 bolts that hold the bushing mount to the tailgate plate. Once everything is adjusted, tighten them all down.
-make sure all adjustments are done with the tire installed so that the carrier is preloaded properly. Otherwise you’ll get it all adjusted, put the tire on, and then it might sit too low.
Bottom line? It’s worth it, just be prepared to do some work. At the end of the day, it is a very high quality option and regardless of the tinkering I had to do to get it done, I am very happy with it and the new functionality to my Jeep is perfect.
The bumper looks fantastic and is of high quality. It gets three stars due to the horrible instructions. Be warned that for the swing gate portion you will have an extra plate as well as extra bolts, washers and nuts. This is due to this bumpers ability to be fitted on a jk. Instructions can be confusing showing a step for a Tj then the next 7 steps are for jk only then picking back up with a Tj with half of the stuff done leading to you having to do guess work of the order of things needed to be done as well as guessing which bolts go where. I will say the TAPERED BUSHING GOES ON FIRST on the bottom and the other bushing gets hammered into the top of the swing gate. If you do it the other way you’ll have a hard time getting the bottom bushing out without breaking your tail light. Overall good product and would buy and install again but ARB needs to work on their directions for how expensive the product is.