Grille Guard on ‘22 Expy

[familyman2k17]

Man, if you came up behind me quickly I would for sure think I was caught....

A deer hit me last summer and caused what I thought was just a bit of grille damage. $6500 later it was a lot more. A BullGuard would have helped out immensely!

“A deer hit me”. Someone has talked to insurance companies a few times…

 

[Lumberjack]

We are over run with deer here so we took a chance on an F150 front bumper and it worked great!

 

[sjwhiteley]

We are over run with deer here so we took a chance on an F150 front bumper and it worked great!View attachment 80792View attachment 80793View attachment 80794

That looks fricking awesome! Did you do it yourself or have it done? What are the specs on the bumper? Looks like Baja lights or a similar design?

 

[Lumberjack]

The bumper is from Ironman 4x4, it is intended for an F150. I did have to do a little cutting on the frame horn bumper mounts. Took maybe 3 minutes. Disassembling the front bumper plastics took longer. After I had the bumper mocked up I slid the plastics behind into place marked my cuts and put the rubber trim on. The lights in the bumper are from Ironman but the 4 big lights are cheap Temu units (like $25 each) but the give out plenty of light for our needs. We may upgrade to BajaDesigns later but with 2k on the bumper and winch, 2k on the Icon lift I ordered and 2500 on wheels and tires I had to cut cost somewhere. The lift should be here next week. I’ll update a pic with the bead locks and 35s once I get it finished.

 

[Lumberjack]

 

[VCFP153]

Well, after making lots of phone calls for the last 6 months trying to confirm if an 18-21 grille guard will fit on a 22 expedition, I finally bit the bullet and bought one to try out. Picked this one up (SteelCraft) that was a scratch/dent special on eBay for $400 after shipping. It went on relatively easy, the hardest part I had was “trying” to remove the rubber trim around the tow hooks. After taking off the valence pieces in an attempt to remove the rubber pieces surrounding the tow hooks, I found out they were scored and made to be cut out. So, note to those looking to fool around with those rubber pieces in the future. Other than that delay, I wasn’t able to get the tow hooks back in with the grille guard brackets due to very tight clearance underneath for the front tow hook bolts. I might could have got the tow hooks in if I disassembled the bumper further, but I didn’t feel comfortable enough breaking down the bumper anymore than what I had. I also wasn’t too concerned about being without tow hooks either. My only concern with the SteelCraft grille guard and the standard headlights for XLT’s is that the uprights somewhat obscure the turn signals but the glow of them is still readily visible even in bright day light. All-in-all, it was a pretty straight forward install, and think it really looks at home of the front of the truck, despite not being made for it. Feel free to leave any questions or comments.

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Looks a lot like mine, except mine is Black Horse branded.

 

[nationalgallery]

Nice, I never saw the point of these. I drove down to Hill Country Texas and noticed nearly every truck had a grill guard and scratched my head. On the way home I saw 20 dead deer in about 30 miles. Seem very useful in certain areas I guess. It's nice yours looks so good on your vehicle.

I've had kamikaze deer bolt out of the treeline and ram into the side of my cars twice, so you really need a force field surrounding the car for true protection.