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Devan Ence

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Toughen Up! Installing a HiLine Front Winch Bumper on a 2024 Tacoma

Goodbye, Flimsy Plastic —Hello, Front Winch!

As we all know, upgrading the front bumper on these newer rigs is a must. Getting rid of the flimsy plastic front bumper on the TREAD Edition Tacoma and upgrading it with Body Armor 4X4’s HiLine front winch bumper and high clearance wings seemed like the right choice. The install was straightforward. The only part that was a little stressful was cutting the front plastics for the high clearance wings (a week before SEMA). It turned out to not be a big deal after all (I was just overthinking it). With a little help from my buddy Jason Sorenson from Straight Auto Restoration, we had it knocked out in no time. This upgrade really changed the look of the truck and added some great functionality.

2024 Toyota Tacoma factory front.
We removed the top rubber cover held by push locks and then removed the bolts across the top.
Next, we removed the bolts on the underside of the bumper.
We removed the bolts holding the fender liner in place. There are two hidden bolts behind the lower front fender flare that needed to be removed. Be careful not to pry too hard in the beginning or you may crack this piece.
After disconnecting the wiring harness, we removed the front bumper. Next, we removed the louvers and any wiring that we didn’t want to cut.
It was time to pull the plastic crash bar and throw it away.
Now that everything was clear, we had room to begin the install of the BA4X4 HiLine winch bumper.
The new front bumper takes up about the same area as the black plastic bumper cover. When cutting the lower grille piece that has the front radar piece, we removed everything right up to the bottom of the sensor. When cutting around paint, I always tape off the area so I don’t scratch it.
We had successfully made room for the HiLine to fit.
The bolts for the HiLine bumper fit right into the factory crash bar location on both sides. There is adjustment from side to side so we didn’t crank everything down until after test fitting the plastics.
Once we made the necessary adjustments, we could crank everything tight on the HiLine bumper.
If you are going to be running a winch, now is the time to slide it into place. Here, we installed a Warn Zeon 10-S.
We bolted the winch in place from underneath and pulled all the wiring to the battery at this point.
We then pulled the rope through the spool with the provided wire and a pair of vise grips. Once we did that, we put the rope keeper in place in the keyway. Next, we hooked the winch up to the battery.
With the wiring done, we had the option to either use the remote or set up Bluetooth to our phone before spooling the rope into the winch.
The louvers and wiring harness were then installed to the front plastics.
I had to build a bracket to install the sensor so the cruise control would work. It was super simple to do, and after chatting with BA4X4, they will be providing a similar bracket with the bumper.
We reinstalled the front plastics and could have called it done at this point if we didn’t plan on running the high clearance wings.
Based on measurements and where the wings should land, we laid out some tape lines as reference points on the plastics.
We started by cutting little pieces and working our way up. We did this to avoid cutting too much at the beginning.
We continued to cut up little by little and test fitting the wings.
With the fit almost perfect, we did some fine tuning with the 60-grit sanding disk.
We added trim molding to the cut edge just to finish it off. You don’t have to do this if you don’t want to—we just felt like it gave it a more finished look.
With everything fitting the way we liked, it was time to finally bolt the wings in place.
The fender liner was trimmed to fit the new high clearance wings.
Here’s a look at the finished install of the HiLine front bumper and high clearance wings from Body Armor 4×4 on a 2024 Toyota Tacoma.

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