LOD Armor Lite Shorty Front Bumper with Bull Bar and Winch Mount

[Snarf77]

So I'm pretty excited to have an incredibly lightweight yet strong front bumper. It allowed me to put a winch on the front end without sending my rubicon into a nose-dive every time I hit the brakes. The Engo E9000 winch with synthetic line is a solid setup and much lighter with the blue rope swapped in.

The Rubicon actually drove a bit better after the swap. I have the 6 speed manual transmission and whenever I left off the clutch in anything but a gentle manner, the front end would proceed to point towards the sky until the torque is fully converted to forward motion and the vehicle settled down. With the additional weight on the front end of the winch (the LOD Armor Lite Shorty added no weight vice stock), the front feels much more under control and the acceleration is more level front to back with less vertical movement on hard acceleration. That’s a plus for every day driving.

I might have lost a hair in the MPG category, but its a negligible amount that I can live with it for the added self recovery capability of the Rubicon. I’m guessing that the addition of the LOD bolt on skid plate likely minimized the loss in MPG. I'm taking a guess that it effectively served whatever purpose the stock plastic lower air dam (I refuse to name it skid plate) had on the stock jeep.

Bottom line final thoughts on install of the LOD Armor Lite Shorty Bumper, Bull Bar, skid plate, and Engo Winch: Hell yes. I’m fortunate enough to live in an area full of jeepers, seeing at least 4 or 5 on my daily commute each way and 4 more at work. I get regular compliments and inquiries which I do my best to answer. There was rumor of an “Armor Lite” Series of rear bumpers with a similar look and feel and I’d love to see one without a tire carrier (keeping with “Lite” theme) and hitch integration for bike racks, cargo racks, and the occasional light towing.

Either way, hats off to these guys for a bumper well built!

[JeepLab]

We need to see a rear bumper.

[Snarf77]

LOD doesn't seem to have advertised an "armor lite" rear bumper yet. What I see are there signature series bumpers being made out of lighter high strength steel. They advertise a 21% weight savings without any sacrifice in strength. I doubt they could fudge that too much because their rear carriers hold up to a 40 inch tire. A lot of rear carriers stop at 37 inch right? Either way, I'll soon be rolling 37 KM2s and an LOD rear should leave me room for adjustment of my spare to where I need it.

[JeepLab]

LOD makes 2 options for tire carriers,

one that swings with the tailgate, and the other is for carrying more gear.

Both are cool. I like the look of the back all loaded up with fuel, and other stuff. But I HATE opening the extra gate to get to your gear.

The other side of that, is how heavy your tailgate would be with all that extra stuff.

I'd love to know the real overall weight so we could compare it to AEV and others to see how much lighter it really is.

[Snarf77]

LOD makes 2 options for tire carriers,

one that swings with the tailgate, and the other is for carrying more gear.

Both are cool. I like the look of the back all loaded up with fuel, and other stuff. But I HATE opening the extra gate to get to your gear.

The other side of that, is how heavy your tailgate would be with all that extra stuff.

I'd love to know the real overall weight so we could compare it to AEV and others to see how much lighter it really is.

I'm with you. 100% swing with door on my jeep. I'm in and out of the back door all the time. When I'm shopping rear bumpers, I first make sure it will hold a 37, then I make sure it opens with the door. Everything else is tertiary.