Disco 1 Tow bar fitting, rear bumper removal?

Having read a lot of the posts, I'm still not clear about how to do this.
Seen another post where the bolts for the tow bar head are fitted upwards through the rear cross member with the nuts fitted above. How do the nuts not turn unless you remove the bumper & hold them? I really want to avoid removing the bumper 'cos I know it'll be a pain....is there a clever, masons way of doing it?

JDZ2 said:

Having read a lot of the posts, I'm still not clear about how to do this.
Seen another post where the bolts for the tow bar head are fitted upwards through the rear cross member with the nuts fitted above. How do the nuts not turn unless you remove the bumper & hold them? I really want to avoid removing the bumper 'cos I know it'll be a pain....is there a clever, masons way of doing it?

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There's no need to remove the bumper, if it's a factory fit 300series bumper.
The two bolts that fit upwards their heads are accessible to turn with a socket while their nuts above the cross member are held stationary with a ring spanner. Simples

discool said:

There's no need to remove the bumper, if it's a factory fit 300series bumper.
The two bolts that fit upwards their heads are accessible to turn with a socket while their nuts above the cross member are held stationary with a ring spanner. Simples

Click to expand...

Must be me!! I couldn't get a spanner anywhere near the nuts, there was no space! I have ended up undoing the single bolt holding the bumper & removing the bumper. The nut for this bolt is a welded captive nut & of course it's sheared off now so the bumper is off & needs to have the nut welded back on! Not the end of the world but very annoying ...thought it would be an hour or so & it's taken all day

I don’t know if this applies to you but I replaced my bumper bolts with stainless ones to make it easier to remove when going off road so it doesn’t get the corner caps pulled off of get bent upwards like I’ve seen before, and I’ve fitted light clusters in the pillars that have all the lights and indicators so when the bumper is off I still have a full set of lights

HTH

towsey956 said:

I don’t know if this applies to you but I replaced my bumper bolts with stainless ones to make it easier to remove when going off road so it doesn’t get the corner caps pulled off of get bent upwards like I’ve seen before, and I’ve fitted light clusters in the pillars that have all the lights and indicators so when the bumper is off I still have a full set of lights

HTH

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That's useful, good idea, thanks. I'm intrigued about your lights....do you have any pictures of what you've done?

I only put some in from a different year disco, you might already have them?

Don't quote me on this and I'm sure someone will correct me if needs be, 200's only had lights in pillars and no bumper lights at all then earlier 300's had full set of lights in pillars same as 200 but then extra sides and indicators in bumper (think it was something to do with not being able to see lights in pillars from the back if the door was open at the side of the road like in a breakdown situation) then late 300 like mine had no indicators in the pillars just in the bumper. So all I did was get some earlier ones and they plugged straight in, only thing is the extra trailer warning indicator light flashes when the bumper is on but I don't even notice it anymore and more importantly the lights all work as they should with the trailer on, they don't flash slower or anything like that but I think you can swap the flasher relay if you have any probs. I forgot to say in first post but lastly I even got some old bumper light bulb holders to plug in (no bulbs) when I take the bumper off just to keep the mud and water out of the plugs then just tuck them up out of the way. A simple little mod to help save problems out in the field and with good bolts it takes about 5 mins to get bumper off, ya could do it in 2 for a bet ha

HTH

Towsey