Bumping it up a Notch

Improving Style and Impact for a 2015-Plus Tundra

One of the easiest upgrades with the most visual impact that you can make to your truck is to swap the boring stock bumpers for more aggressive versions. At the same time, you can also upgrade the lighting to make nighttime driving easier.

The truck we picked for this installation was our ’15 Toyota Tundra TRD Pro Crewmax 4WD that we have used for other installations. The truck had already been lifted, so the new bumpers further improved its look. We wanted to custom-order a bumper to fit the brand and size of the lights we planned to install, so we contacted the crew at Fusion Bumpers. We also made a call to Offroad LED Bars (OLB) and ordered both sets of lights, front and rear, that we wanted for our project.

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Fusion builds bumpers to customers’ needs, so we were confident that everything would fit perfectly. For the front bumper, we ordered P/N FB-1417TUNFB ($1,275 retail). Fusion built-in mounts and openings for the OLB 20-inch single row light bar in the center of the bumper, P/N OLB20SR ($195 retail), and a pair of OLB 5.5-inch cubes where factory fog lights would go, P/N OLB55 ($299 retail for the pair). To match the rear bumper to the front, we ordered P/N FB-1417TUNRB ($1,000 retail). The crew also added spots for a pair of OLB 6-inch light bars, P/N OLB6 ($120 retail each), to tie into the factory reverse lights.

Once we received the bumpers, which showed up as raw steel, ready to paint or powder coat, we took them to the crew over at Rhino Linings of West North Carolina, to have them color-match both bumpers to the truck. This would not only look good, it would provide better scratch resistance. The crew sprayed the bumpers inside and out with regular black Rhino Linings bed liner, and then they sprayed the color-matched UV top coat on the exterior of each bumper. This left the inside easier to keep clean since it was black.

After they were ready, we took them to a buddy’s house for the installation. We wanted to show our readers that modifications like this don’t always require a shop. With the help of a couple of friends and some basic hand tools, as well as knowledge of the vehicle you’re working on, you can do this in your own driveway. Since other front-end components had to come off to swap the front bumper, we took this time to upgrade the truck with a DB Customz grille and color-matched headlights by Plain An Simple to make it even better. ST