Anyone know if the top pad is removable? Stopped by a body shop tonight to ask about getting bumpers painted. Already have the front bumper, still looking for a rear. Originally I was going to just add painted black bumpers, but I'm a little concerned it won't look right. So just in case the black doesn't work I went poking around locally about getting them painted to match. One guy tells me he isn;t sure if the rear pad can be removed. He wasn't sure if it was Jeep or Ford who puts them on and melts the posts on the pad to the bumper. Any ideas?

 

It can be removed, i was looking to paint mine and thought, what the hell might as well get a roll pan

 

Funny story, my bumper was dented from the lot, so I got a new one from the dealer. I decided to install it myself, this involves removing the top pad. Not a fun task, I ended up having the replace that also when I broke all but to retaining clips on it. CHeck to see if they make a tool to remove it, if not you will be a lucky man to reuse it. Maybe some have had better experience.

 

You can remove it. It takes a careful hand to push up on the tabs and not break them off. It might be easier to remove the bumper then the top pad.

 

Kinda, you have to remove the entire hitch to get the bumper off if you keep the pad on, I tried that first. Then there are a few clips blocked by the hitch itself. The bumper has a total of 8 bolts holding it on if I remember correctly, 6 on the top side under the bumper cover, and two where a tow ball would go under the bumper that all attach to the hitch. My suggestion would be buy a new one and swap it out after. I think they list for $65 or so.

 

And here I thought the rear bumper would be easier to remove. So the pad has to come off before the bumper? I would have thought take the hitch off then remove the bumper. Then if the pad has to come off, then take that off. If I ever find a bumper we'll see how it goes, hopefully the black will be ok. Thanks for the info.

 

Yeah, the only way to seperate the bumper from the supports on the hitch is to remove the pad to get to the Torx screws on top. But like I said, the easiest way to work it at least for my sanity would be have a new bumper pad ready to go back on it and trash the old one, it takes a lot off your mind trying to get it off without breaking the "snaps". Maybe Ford has some magic tool to make it easier

 

on a flareside you can remove the bumper and hitch as one unit.then take the pad off to get to the torx bolts.i dented my bumper and bought a new one i got the pad off with only breaking two clips.i was able to reuse the pad because they were not in a spot that made much differance.