Here's the starting point....
Here's the starting point. We'd installed another front fascia once before, and it had already contained fog lamps. We removed that fascia, however, and never got the lights back in. For a real racy look, the fog-lamp holes would be great to run brake cooling air ducts from. The flap hanging under the bumper fastens to the radiator crossmember with plastic push fasteners. To remove the bumper, it must be unfastened.
Finally, there is a reasonable number of aftermarket accessories available for our '97-and-later Dodge Dakota trucks, but one of the first on the scene to supply customizers with dress-up parts was Stillen. Among its offerings was a urethane front fascia/bumper cover.
Stillen's piece fits over the truck's stock bumper/front valance assembly, covering them both and giving the front of the truck a cleaner look by visually replacing two components (a black bumper top and body-colored lower valance) with a single piece.
The standard practice is to paint the Stillen cover body color and install it on the truck. One thing that escapes most owners, however, is the spoilers molded into the edges of the cover in the lower valance area. Painted flat black, these spoilers have the look and feel of chin spoilers from the musclecar era. (Wouldn't they look right with a Shaker hood? Hmmm...)
Installation is easy-apply the supplied double-sided adhesive tape to the top of the bumper and a few other areas, install the Stillen cover, and secure it with four supplied sheetmetal screws. It will take you longer to have the part painted than to actually install it. The cover installs with the front bumper and fascia on the truck, but we chose to remove them during the installation. The main reason was for photography purposes, but it was also a little easier to make sure our fitment was right. The stock bumper/fascia removes with eight 18mm bolts and is easy to remove and reinstall. We don't think it really added any time to the installation, and it did make things easier to line up. Additionally, we spent less time on our back under the nose of the truck and didn't scrape our knuckles on the radiator through the fascia's lower grille opening. Even with removing the bumper, the whole procedure takes about 45 minutes-it's that quick.
The adhesive tape and sheetmetal screws are supplied with the kit, but we managed to lose them between getting the cover painted and getting it on the truck. We found some tape and had some leftover sheetmetal screws from the factory R/T flares we installed last month. It actually worked out well, because we installed two extra screws in the cover to make sure it wouldn't flap in the wind.
For photographic purposes,...
For photographic purposes, we removed the entire front bumper and lower fascia assembly for this installation, but the Stillen cover can be installed with the bumper on the truck. Here, the bumper is upside down; this is the back of the bottom of the fascia. The Stillen cover slips over the whole thing.
The Stillen cover's mouth...
The Stillen cover's mouth on the bottom of the valance is molded as being completely open, while the stock Dakota mouth has three vertical bars in it. The Stillen cover has indent lines for cutouts around the bars. We chose to cut the bars off the stock fascia for an open lower grille. A mini-hacksaw made easy work of the urethane.
The Stillen cover slips right...
The Stillen cover slips right over the stock bumper/lower valance. Here the bumper assembly is upside down, and you can see where the left side is in place, while the right side needs to be slipped into its final position.
On the back side of the assembly,...
On the back side of the assembly, you can see where the Stillen cover needs to be attached to the stock piece around the lower grille opening. We used the adhesive tape here, as well as along the top of the bumper, to hold the cover in place. Removing the entire bumper assembly from the truck made this step much easier.
Next, we used the sheetmetal...
Next, we used the sheetmetal screws to secure the edges of the cover to the bumper. Since we lost the four screws that came with the Stillen cover, we used the leftovers from last month's fender-flare installation. We installed two screws at the back edges in the wheel opening (one through the steel bumper, one through the stock urethane lower valance), and then two extra screws under the lower grille mouth, fastening the Stillen cover to the stock fascia. These screws in the bottom will keep the bottom of the bumper cover from flapping in the wind.
The front cover, installed....
The front cover, installed. The one-piece look, open lower grille, and chin spoilers are subtle, but this is one instance where less is definitely more.
If you do remove the bumper,...
If you do remove the bumper, there is a plastic splash shield behind it that you must remove as well. It is held in place with plastic push-in fasteners. These fasteners are destroyed when you remove them, so stop at the auto parts store and pick some up before you start.