Thank you very much to all who have contributed to this thread, particularly to
@Ken226 for all the work he put in to sharing his bracket design and
@16WhiteQC for sharing his install images and tight cut-out dimensions.
For anyone else wanting to undertake this install in the future, here are my notes from reading the entirety of this thread plus many others.
Tow Hook Bracket Drawings: These are designs created by
@Ken226 and consist of PDF, DWG and STP files. "These move the front of the hooks up, and outboard enough that they are centered in the lower grill area of the 2012 and up Ram models that have the plastic painted bumper, such as the sport and express."
ASTM A36 Carbon Steel: Commonly called mild steel, is the correct material to fabricate these brackets. The thickness should be 7 guage (7 ga) which is 3/16". I opted for 5 mm thick steel, which is only marginally greater than what is specified on
@Ken226's drawings.
Other steel designations are 1018 cold rolled or 4130 / 4140 chromoly alloy. If you're fabricating these brackets yourself out of one piece of angle iron, you want to start with a section that measures 3" x 3" x 3/16" (x 8" length) ((76mm x 76mm x 4.76mm (x 200mm length)).
I found a local steel fabricator who could manufacturer and powdercoat the brackets from
@Ken226's 3D model step file. However, during production, they did run into an issue with the folding of these brackets which resulted in them deforming as follows.
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To overcome this, they cut the base and back profiles separately, then welded them together to achieve the correct geometry.
Lower Bumper Insert Trim Cutout: I followed
@16WhiteQC's cutout specifications which resulted in an incredibly neat and almost factory finish. I almost blindly followed his
profile dimensions and can confirm that they are absolutely perfect.
Inward distance from end of lower rib: 4 7/8" (124mm)
Cutout opening width: 2 5/8" (67mm)
Cutout opening height down from lower rib: 1" (25mm)
I recommend removing the insert trim from the bumper and making the cutouts on a bench. You will need to remove the trim later to install the hooks through the small cutouts.
I cleaned the cutout area, adhered masking tape, then drew the cutout shape. I drilled two 6mm holes in both lower corners of the cutout to achieve a rounded internal corner. During cutting, I heated the utility knife blade between passes as this immensely helped keep the cut neat. I then removed the tape and polished the cut with some 400 and 2000 grit finishing paper.
Mopar Front Tow Hook Installation: Installation procedures are pretty straight forward with tightening torques being 95 Nm (70 ft lbs) for the four bolts against the bumper and 85 Nm (63 ft lbs) for the single bolt at the rear of the tow hook.
To install the tow hooks through the small cutouts, firstly re-install the insert trim back into the bumper but do not clip it into place. Then position the hooks at 90 degrees towards the bumper and manoeuvre the hook ends through the cutouts. It helps to have one person underneath the truck and one person in front of the bumper to pull the hook through whilst gently pushing on the insert trim. Once the hooks are loosely bolted in place, clip the insert trim back to the bumper.
Finally, align the hooks into the cutouts and tighten the bolts.
@16WhiteQC posted in his thread that he had to "add a 1/8" x 1" flat stock spacer to move the hooks down a bit due to the feature in the insert". I confirm that I also had to do this otherwise the hooks were pushing up against the insert trim's lower rib. I used two M12 washers between each hook and bracket (i.e. four washers per tow hook). In hindsight, I should have asked the fabricator to move the two holes on
@Ken226's brackets upwards by 3mm which would have negated the need for additional spacers.
Oh yeah, before all of this, I had my tow hooks powdercoated a metallic red colour to match the Factor 55 Hitchlink receiver at the rear
.
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