DIY: Front End Removal [TJ/KJ]

[DAM-088]

You'll need: A Front Bumper/Parabolic Head Lights,/Front Reo Bar + Philips Screwdriver, Flathead Screwdriver, Socket Wrench (Socket - 10mm, 12mm, 14mm)



Difficulty: Not a lot of experience required, just time and patience. Is a 1 person job if you like it that way.

ETA: Took me about 3 hours to figure out how to get all the bolt and bits off, give yourself a fair amount of time, don't start at 8pm or anything like that.

Instructions:

1. First things first, pop your bonnet and disconnect your battery (just to be safe, you will have to unplug lights and you don't want to blow a bulb)





2. Your next step will be remove the small cover above the grill, mine had 6 screw holding it in.





3. Remove your grill, i found this a little bit more difficult than i had been led to believe it was (maybe its because i have a Verada grill that i hold so dear, maybe not). Don't be afraid to be forceful, otherwise it will never come off.

There are 6 clips holding it in place, 2 different types.

The top left and top right are attached to the grill they are fairly simple just squeeze them and they will come out.



The bottom 3 and the top center one are attached to the car, they have a clip that looks like this (Plastic piece in the centre of the picture):

You have to push the center bit, either way it doesn't matter for it to allow the grill to become dislodged.

[DAM-088]

4. Next you will need to remove (if applicable) your fog lights and parker lights.

After unscrewing the one screw that holds these in, they just pull away, unplug the cable from the back, and put aside.



After unscrewing the two screws that holds these in, they just pull out, unplug the cable from the back, and put aside. Be careful not the unscrew or screw the screw that resides on the side of the fog lights as this adjusts the angle of the light, and is in no way related to the removal.





5. Now that the grill and lights are out of the way we can start remove the millions of bolts holding the front bar on. Lets start with the 3 located underneath the grill itself.





6. There are also 6 on the bottom of the bar, that attach the bar itself to the skid plate. (as you can see i have done some 'skidding'!





7. The next 4 (maybe 5) were the hardest of the lot to remove, if you have removed the 6 black screws from the first picture you will recognize that the next one are of the same variety. (I couldn't get a very good picture because of the location)

To access these screws i had to put my arm up from the bottom (where you have just removed the skid plate and unscrew each one. However, these are not real screws, they are made of plastic and sometimes don't unscrew at all, so i destroyed them will my flat head screwdriver.

Just to give you more of an idea of where these are, the picture was taken through the grill that is at the bottom of the front bar.

[DAM-088]

8. The next two (for each side) are also quite difficult to locate and extract, however they are real bolts and cant just be destroyed.

In both of your front wheel arches there are a bunch of bolts, the three we want are these ones:



Pulling the black guard away you will be able to locate 1 of the 2 bolts needed.



The second bolt was very difficult to take a picture of, and this was the best i could do.

The right hand spot is the bolt that has just been removed. The left hand one is where the second bolt is located.

POI: I actually found it easier to go through my parker light holes to get this one, however some of you will not have these.





9. After removing the two bolts from each the front bar will be free to come off.

[DAM-088]

10. Now that the front bar is off you will have access to your reinforcement bar (the giant silver bar that runs across the front of the car, i think the magnas is black,) or more commonly know as your 'reo' bar.

Thanks to lowrider for pointing out the differences between the Magna and the Verada, a Magna reo can be seen HERE)



To remove this, there are a total of 12 bolts. 4 on each side are located within the holes.



The next 2 (for each side) are located behind the bar, from underneath they can be seen here:



and here:



Removing these bolts, the reo itself can be removed and will leave you with this:

[DAM-088]

11. The reo itself is what hold the Verada fog lights in place, they an be easily removed by undoing the 3 bolts for each bracket found on top here:



and on the bottom here:



12. To remove a para headlights, you will need to unplug the wiring from the back, and 5 bolts to set them free, the first three are seen here:



Another one seen here:



The last one, which i didn't get a photo of unfortunately (its is just next to the one you removed for the front bar, with the front bar off this is extremely easy to find/remove will be seen roughly here underneath the quarter panel:



Hopefully by now, you could have you front bumper, reo bar, and head lights removed.

- damox

[s_tim_ulate]

Good stuff!

[[shhh]ayne]

nice work dude
this thread could possibly come in handy for me and Ian this weekend

thanks!

[lowrider]

hmm thats different to my front end, i converted my TF to a TJ front end with VRX addition.
and mine was different.
my reo bar was only held in by 4 bolts,
and the reobar was attached the the bumper so you could only remove the 2 if you took the reo bar out and took them both off as one unit.
mabey yours was different cuz it was a verada

[DAM-088]

my reo bar was only held in by 4 bolts,

and the reobar was attached the the bumper so you could only remove the 2 if you took the reo bar out and took them both off as one unit.

mabey yours was different cuz it was a verada

In my second post, (step 7) it shows that the front bar has 4 or 5 screws holding it to the reo bar.

Was yours like this, or was it different all together?

Ive also been told that the reo bar was upgraded in the TH series, which carried through the TJ Series, im guessing these versions might be closer to my KJ example.

However, the Verada has a much bigger reo bar than a Magna, so it may be different altogether.

[AdamJ2006]

yeah all front ends are a bit of a pain to do, the bolt needs more hands to hold that the average human has....be patient with it, and dont tighten until ur sure you've got it in the right spot...learnt that the hard way... Good post man! Sticky?