so while camping in the poconos, I managed to park on a stump. I backed onto the side of the road and went to pull forward to park, and hit a stump which was just short enough miss the metal of the bumper. The carnage ensued, the stump hit the condensor which bent the radiator support which in turn pushed the radiator back into the fan and gashed a large hole in the radiatior. I had to get my truck and camper towed home from the mountains. The truck is still in pieces in my garage, replacment parts needed:

radiator
fan shroud
radiator support
plastic around condesor
lower plastic of bumper ??
passenger driving light

All of this becuase there is no protection at all for below the metal of the bumper, so needless to say I'm looking into a bull bar or something to add protection to the front end. Anybody else have a similar horror story??

 

Ouch! Yeah, some type of pan underneath would have helped for sure.

 

ya, the front ends are weak on these trucks. they shoulda beefed them up a lil more.

 

i think that is a understatment^

 

idk what you guys do your trucks, but we beat the snot out of our trucks (front ends included) and have not had any problems (3 dakotas and my durango), we have hit stumps, slid into trees one of the ball joints went while driving(back roads thankfully not highway), and the front end stood up to it

 

Well my front bumper (steel and the plastic on the bottom half) is off about 1-2" to the drivers side. Think it happened when the ground ate my license plate holder and plate. But other than one of my headlight bulbs being hard to get to and that one of my foglights touches the plastic but other than those 2 things its still good.

Tho a stump can be much angerier than the dry side of a puddle. Still sucks to here man

 

rite...

 

i might have some of that stuff you need, does your plastic over the fan look real big and black with 2 yellow caps one for washer and coolent? Some of them are real small and dont have the caps on them.. so im asking.

 

ok dont beleive me, we dont have the truck anymore, but balljoints are a known problem with these trucks and yes it needed alignment after the new bjs but it was fine never had a problem with the front end,