By Fab Fours Stubby Front Bumper + Accessories for the 21+ Bronco
In this article, we’re going to take a close-up look at the brand new Fab Four Stubby Front Bumper that we just installed along with all these winch accessories on our brand new full-size Ford Bronco. There are a ton of different options cropping up as far as designs and functionality in off-road aftermarket bumpers for this new Bronco, and we even made a full video about all the options that we found at SEMA and we’ll put a link to that video down below if you haven’t seen it already. Since new products are constantly being released, this bumper wasn’t even featured in that video but when it got announced we knew this was going to be a great fit for us. If you want to buy any of the products that I talk about we’ll put links to everything throughout the article that will take you over to Motoroso.com where you can reach us on LiveChat or toll-free at 833.MOTOROSO and we’re always here to help.
VIDEO: FAB FOURS BUMPER + ACCESSORIES FOR THE 21+ BRONCO
VIDEO: ALL BUMPER OPTIONS FOR THE 21+ FORD BRONCO AT SEMA 2021
The Fab Fours Stubby Front Bumper
The Fab Four Stubby Bumper is one of the first stubby bumpers introduced on the market. With stubby bumpers, the edge of the bumper actually lines up with the quarter panel of the vehicle instead of with the fender flares which allows the flexibility to do whatever you want with the fender flares and not worry about how the bumper is going to look. It also means that it gives maximum clearance for the tires and we are going to be doing 37s on this as soon as we can finally get our hands on a lift kit, and that extra clearance is going to make sure we don’t get any rub and we can get maximum articulation from the suspension. Thirdly, a smaller bumper means fewer materials and that means less weight. The overall width of the Fab Fours stubby bumper is 65-1/4 inches and it weighs 140 pounds.
VALUE FOR MONEY
Some bumpers can get really expensive like well over $2,000 just for the bumper alone and in this case, at the time of releasing this article even with the pre-runner option, this bumper was just a little over $1,100 — that is a great price point and a great value for all the features you’re going to get.
Fab Fours is making this stuff out of top-quality materials and all their products are made right here in the United States of America with USA-sourced steel and it’s 3/16 inch thick — that is thick, heavy-duty steel and exactly what you would want in a product like this. They also double powder coat it black with their ultra-durable finish to make sure it doesn’t show its wear too soon.
It’s available with and without the pre-runner bar and at the time we’re releasing this article the pre-runner bar is just another extra $100. The bumper has integrated D-ring mounts for shackles as well as top hooks if you just want to throw your tow rope right over the hook. It also has a place for mounting up to a 12,000-pound winch which is about the top end of what you’re going to find on any aftermarket bumper. If you don’t want to put a winch there, it’s got mounting positions for up to four 5.5-inch round lights or one 20-inch double-row LED bar. It also features two spots for mounting 3×3 cubes which we’ll come back to in just a moment.
BUY THE FAB FOURS STUBBY FRONT BUMPER W/ PRE-RUNNER GUARD HERE!
BUY THE FAB FOURS STUBBY FRONT BUMPER W/O PRE-RUNNER GUARD HERE!
The Fab Fours Skid Plate
One nice feature of this bumper is that it is compatible with the OEM skid plate. I bent my OEM skid plate up the first time I hit it on anything, so even though it is fairly tough, it bent up pretty quick and it showed its wear almost immediately. Fortunately, this bumper is also compatible with Fab Fours Skid Plate which we highly recommend. It’s made from the same 3/16-inch steel and two-stage powder coated so it’s going to be much tougher. In terms of design, the nice angular style and the emblazoned logo are going to match this bumper much more nicely than the stock skid plate.
OFF-ROAD CLEARANCE
Since this bumper is a winch bumper it sticks out further in front of the vehicle than the modular stock bumper meaning you may have a reduction in the overall angle of approach and clearance. However, we’ve taken the Bronco out on trails where we’ve actually made contact with the trail with my modular stock bumper on the winglets and have not had any clearance issues whatsoever on this Fab Fours bumper and our Bronco isn’t even lifted yet. Regardless, if you’re hitting some of the hardest trails out there clearance is one thing to keep in mind and is one of the sacrifices you make with a winch bumper.
The Winch
Now, let’s talk about the winch that we chose for this application. There are a number of different brands out there and of course, Warn is the brand that everybody knows about but frankly Warn is very expensive and they’re very badly back-ordered during the supply chain issues that are going on in the world right now. At SEMA this year Superwinch introduced their new SX series winches and these things are absolutely feature-packed for what they cost.
This winch, the SX 12SR, is well under $1,000, it has a 12,000-pound winching capacity with a 6 horsepower motor. It also includes a synthetic rope which helps make it safer when you’re actually winching in case there’s a rope failure, plus it saves a ton of weight to keep that weight off the front. The winch has a relocatable control box to give you more clearance or give it a more low profile look and that might be a good idea if you have the front camera, and in addition to the standard wired plug-in remote, it includes a wireless remote for even easier control of the winch.
FITMENT NOTES
Now just one note about the Superwinch SX 12R with this Fab Fours Stubby Bumper, it is a very tight tolerance to the pre-runner bar and actually makes physical contact which is not an issue for performance whatsoever, but if you’re going to if you watch our install video you’ll see it’s a little bit of a snug fit. It works just fine and we’re really happy with the final fit and finish.
Of course, the Superwinch does come with an aluminum fairlead that’s 3/4 inches and a basic clevis hook, but because we saved so much money on this winch we wanted to upgrade to some of the best winching gear you can get and that’s going to come from Factor 55.
Factor 55 Recovery Gear
We went with Factor 55’s 1.5-inch military-spec hard-anodized coated Hawse Fairlead as well as the not just beautiful but absolutely feature-packed UltraHook. There are so many features in this thing we’re actually going to make a separate video about this Factory 55 gear as well as our Superwinch SX 12SR.
BUY THE FACTOR 55 HAWSE FAIRLEAD HERE!
BUY THE FACTOR 55 ULTRA HOOK HERE!
WARN EPIC SHACKLES
Now to compliment our recovery gear, we also added the Warn Epic Shackles. These cost just a little bit more than your average shackle, but they have this really cool aggressive design with an 18,000 pound capacity per shackle and the color just happens to perfectly match this Superwinch and the fairlead so they really tie the whole room together.
BUY THE WARN EPIC SHACKLES HERE!
Baja Designs Squadron Lights
Lastly, let’s come back to the 3×3 lights that we chose here which were the Baja Designs Squadron Sports. These put off 3,150 lumens a piece for a total of 6,300 lumens — that’s a lot of light from two little 3×3 cubes that cost well under $300. We wired them in with Baja Designs upfitter harness which wires in super easy into the OEM aux switches and we’ll show you how to do that in our installation guide video down below.
We also opted for their amber lenses in their driving/combo configuration which means that half of the lens is a spot to throw light further down the road and the other half of the lens is a flood to help with the diffusion of light to give you a nice spread. Those Baja Design lights are going to match our A-pillar and roof bar that is coming very soon.
So that’s everything in our setup and we are super happy with how it performs and looks. If you’d like to buy any of these items, check out all the links above where you can find the latest pricing on Motoroso.com. You can also reach us on Livechat there or call us toll-free at 833.MOTOROSO and we would love to help with your Bronco build or any other builds. If you want to check out how to install this check out the installation guide video below. Thanks for reading!
