Rear Bumper
So back at the end of February I started to realize that I was going to need a different rear bumper/tire carrier for the kind of trips I want to do. I was running a stock rear bumper and a Gr8tops exogate, designed by Jeff Scherb. The exogate is great and I recommend to fellow jeepers all the time, but for my needs a bumper/tire carrier that I could have jerry cans mounted to it and some storage in addition to my trasharoo was called for. I had looked at the LOD rear bumpers before and really liked them, they make 2 different style rear bumpers for the TJ/LJ one that is a simple design and one that has a little more shape to it. LOD was having a winter sale when I decided to get a new bumper, the sale was free shipping and 10% off. I choose to order their TJ/LJ signatures series bumper with trail rack, jerry can mounts, and flush mount LED cube cutouts in the bumper for backup lights. They offer either a raw metal finish or a textured black finish, since my front ARB bumper has a smooth black finish I really wanted to have the rear matched so I called up LOD and asked them if they would do a custom finish for me and they said they could. Ordered the bumper at the beginning of March and it took about 6 weeks to get to me which I thought was pretty good considering they did a custom finish on the bumper.
![IMG_4998.jpg IMG_4998.jpg](https://expeditionportal.com/forum/data/attachments/274/274468-69b67bdec7cd730cafcdf5b5be99c2e6.jpg)
![IMG_5001.jpg IMG_5001.jpg](https://expeditionportal.com/forum/data/attachments/274/274469-fb6dfda9d5ee3b9fd6135f30a0182509.jpg)
![IMG_5002.jpg IMG_5002.jpg](https://expeditionportal.com/forum/data/attachments/274/274470-1fa983ae7e967d351563c6c5e01828dc.jpg)
![IMG_5003.jpg IMG_5003.jpg](https://expeditionportal.com/forum/data/attachments/274/274471-54503778773bd9b70e958454a20d3f73.jpg)
![IMG_5004.jpg IMG_5004.jpg](https://expeditionportal.com/forum/data/attachments/274/274473-6286903dd7d4548ed67ad82c198a5cd5.jpg)
![IMG_5005.jpg IMG_5005.jpg](https://expeditionportal.com/forum/data/attachments/274/274475-adce690522825cd86009c76f88455f0c.jpg)
![IMG_5006.jpg IMG_5006.jpg](https://expeditionportal.com/forum/data/attachments/274/274476-bd6a6706ddaaa3e5b3aab9b4552ce298.jpg)
The bumper came in 3 separate boxes rear bumper, tire carrier and trail rack + jerry can mounts. They way they packaged them is awesome, I don't think brown santa could've messed them up if he tried. The install went pretty smoothly, the instructions tell you to install the bumper lights before installing the bumper and I am glad I did that because they were hard to install with the bumper just laying on the floor, couldn't imagine trying to install them with the bumper on the Jeep. I went with Lifetime LED's 20watt flush mount led cubes in 40 degree flood beam. Plan is to use them for lighting up the campsite at night so they will have their own switch.