Mounted the kimpex front bumper on the 99 500 today. All I can say is it is a crap experience that I do not reccomend with anyone with the winch. Not as time consuming, but definitely harder to do than mounting the winch. It looks pretty damn mean on there though, and there is no way that it will fit in the back of the truck with the tailgate closed now. If I ever break a winch cable, I think I would rather go without rather than take that stupid thing off and try to get it back on again. It is a two person job, and it would be a lot easier if one was a midget. Not much room for two people, and the bumper and winch at the same time are fairly heavy. To mount it, you have to slide the winch plate, with the winch on it, inside the bracket of the bumper. Then a spacer goes in between the back of all this and the frame of the quad(front rack where the grill bolts in). Getting it all lined up is about as fun as 2 weeks of dental work. I think it probably took us over an hour to do this, and it was an hour of true hell. Was it worth it? You bet your **** on that! I can't test it out for anyone, because how in the world do you test a bumper, but I can say that it looks flat rugged on there. The middle is cut out to accomodate the winch cable, and the bars are rounded back to the center on the ends, rather than the two bars that stick out on the polaris bumper.

I reccomend this, but I also recommend having someone else install it, just to save the hassle. This really sucked.

 

Andy:
Sounds like a nice piece of equipment. Do you have any pictures of it yet? Also, where did you find it, was the price resonable? I'd like to take a look at it, if possible.

Thanks,

Mike

 

I'm more enterested in there rear bumper.

Does the bumper hurt you approach angles??

 

Good point. How much farther to they stick out both in front and back? Just wondering, like Boner, if it will cause interference when entering or leaving ditches, steep hillsides, rocks, etc. Just curious.

Thanks again.

Mike

 

http://www.theatvstore.com/theatvsto...ges/072990.jpg

That is the Adress to where you can find a picture of the rear bumper. They don't have one of the front. I plan on having the dealer put mine on. Something just tells me that those will be hard to put on.

 

Thats not a Kimpex rear bumper. Kimpex bumpers are a contuntinuous tubing.

 

Boner are you just blind or what? If you look right in under the freaking picture knucklehead it says KIMPEX just as bold as that. The front bumpers are solid tubing, but the rear look just like that. I'll tell you what. Go to Yahoo and type in "The ATV store" Go to it and go to products. Then go to front and rear bumpers. Next go to AC front and rear. You will see that same exact rear KIMPEX bumper.

 

Yes, I must be blind cause in that picture I don't see Kimpex any were. But I did go to the site and do a search and clicked on the "Arctic Cat bumper" Icon and it showed that same picture.

 

Yeah, its not that it sticks out, but that the bar below the winch is a bit lower, thus hurting approach angles. Only severe angles though, which I could live with. I'm still wondering how the rear bumper will mount. There isn't much back there for it, unless it also mounts to the back rack somewhere. I checked it out as far as bumping it at an odd angle on a big dirt mound that is shaved off on the front (not a slope for the first foot, just shaved straight up and down where a road grater scraped it off, - its right ont the side of a dirt road). I've played on it once before and the fairlead almost touched before the tires made contact. I pulled up to it, and I'm pretty sure the bumper would have hit. I didn't proceed seeing that I would scrape up the bumper for nothing. Merely to go over this and then turn around. I think that there will be places that it will hit where it wouldn't have before, but not enough to matter to me. After I get bigger tires, it will take some of that away as well. It was worth it to me, and with any aftermarket front bumper, you will get that same effect.

 

Cowboy, I have never seen it on any website. The Atv Store website has the rear bumper, but I didn't see the front. I got mine from the local dealer, because I had seen one on a 500 back in 98 when I bought mine. It cost $70 I think. I haven't paid them for it yet, because Friday when I went by, they were almost closed and the parts guy wasn't there so they just gave it to me and told me to come in and pay for it monday. The owner's son is having a wedding in a month that I am in, so I figure they can find me if I don't pay them. They said $70 two months ago when it was on backorder, so it will probably be around 75 after tax. The kimpex website sucks, but maybe you could email them or something. I'm sure there is a dealer somewhere near that has a contact with them.