Installing RC Steel Tubular Front Bumper on 2025 RAM 1500

Rough Country sells these bumpers for 19-24 RAM 1500. I have new 2025 RAM 1500 and was willing to risk. The delivery was flawless and the bumper looked like a good fit at first. Here is what I had to do to make it look nice.

After removing the original bumper and putting new one on I found a pretty big gap between the bumper and the truck's body. Initially it was almost 2". Some of this space was taken by 2 pointy fins on the new bumper, which I had to cut off.

This allowed me to push the bumper higher. Then I jacked the bumper up, released all the bolts and retightened them. The gap got down to about 1".

Then I used parts of the original rubber strip. I had to cut the clips from the strip, drill and tap (M5) holes and screw the parts on. This took care of the gap.

Next thing (or rather - things) were the side endings. I have plastic molding going around the wheel and the bumper endings looked very unfinished. I printed the end caps on a 3D printer using carbon fiber filled nylon filament. From my experience these should last for a pretty long time.

Next challenge was an active shutter, which I had to remove with the original bumper. I tried to leave it unconnected and I tried to connect just a motor. In both cases the check engine light was on. And this really bothered me. So, I came up with the following solution. The motor only expected to go a quarter-turn. If moved less or more it complained that the active shutter is "stuck open". See below how I limited it.

My truck is a higher end model and has all the bells and whistles (HUD, adaptive cruise control, huge screen, etc...) As I was told on RC's web site in the video that the radar for active cruise control goes behind that little grille. Unfortunately, they did not mention how it was supposed to be attached there. First I printed a little frame and attached it to the grille with zip ties.

This was not a good solution. It could work for 2-3 days and then the truck would shine a bunch of yellow symbols and complain that the "front radar is not positioned correctly". This error message could only be seen on an advanced OBD testers. I have an X-Tool, which in the DODGE mode allowed me to see this. Regular OBD-2 mode did not see any errors. So, I had to print another bracket, which accommodated the original polycarbonate cover. And I had to cut a hole for this cover in the grille. Now it works fine.

I got fog lights from Rough Country too. The fit was not very good as the brackets holding the lights are not welded in proper positions. So, while one light is centered in the hole, the other one is stuck at one edge. I will deal with this later. I wired new lights into the wires for original fog lights. They work just fine.

Now, what I really did not like about this bumper is a lack of tying points for zip ties. There are 2 parts on the harness which must be mounted in the horizontal position. Or at least I think they should be mounted this way. Not sure what is inside, but they look and feel very stiff. And there were special places on the original bumper for them. Other parts of the harnes just hang down. One has to be very creative to find places to tie the harness down to the bumper.

So, this was pretty much it. Some might not like the look, but I think this way truck looks a bit more lifted and lighter.