how the heck do we mount this Grill Guard?

[andrewNcarrie]

My husband and I bought this grill/brush guard for our Rideline but we can't get on because of the plastic around the bottom of the truck. We took it to a shop (which we didn't want to do) and they quoted us $115 to put it on. The thing already cost $300! PLEASE HELP US

[bigdave269]

There are mounting pins on the bottom in several different places. The old ones on the truck kept breaking as I pulled them off. If you have ramps you can drive up or if you jack up the truck, you should be able to find them easier, although I just slid under the truck to do everything.

As far as pulling the whole thing dow, I found I did not have to. I was able to trim the plastic with a box cutter and mount the brackets while the plastic cowl was just hanging. It was actually better, because I was able to hold the bracket and determine where I needed to make the cuts.

My grill guard came with instructions for the mounting, but did not go into a lot of detail about trimming this splash guard cowl under the truck. You don't want to take it all the way out because it wraps around to protect the wheel well. There is a hole that allows you to access the bolts on the cross member to the A-arm. A hint for you, don't take that all the way off. Just take out the fron bolts and loosen the back to allow it to drop enough to slide the bracket in between.

[djeaux]

Like Big Dave said, pop out the push pins along the front edge of the plastic splash pan & remove the two bolts that anchor the plastic to the lower lip of the front bumper (plastic cover). There are 2 or 3 push pins on either side of the splash pan (center section). If you remove these, you can gentle pry the pan down, exposing all the bolts. (The oval hole really doesn't allow you to get to all the bolts easily, since you'll need to use a "breaker bar" on your wrench to get them loose.)

Once you have the lower brackets for the grille guard in place, you'll have an idea of how the plastic needs to be cut. A utility knife or sharp tin snips works fine for this. I made a "T" shaped cut going back in line with the front-back edge of the bracket for about 6" & a sideways cut going inward to clear the side-side edge of the bracket about halfway back on the front-back cut. Make the cuts roughly 1/2" wide & it will be a snug fit to push back up after everything's bolted in place.

Don't forget to reinstall all the push pins & the 2 bolts to remount the splash pan...