I'm entering my truck in our local car show this weekend and I'm taking it down with my 37" tires. I'm wondering what the best way to shim my stock bumper forward would be. This is the truck here, a 1999 f250. I can't fully run my 37" until I order new rims.

 

How far do you need to shim it forward?

 

Just need it ahead a couple inches to clear the front tires. I'm running my 31.5" at the moment.

 

Been awhile since I played around with the front bumper of that model year truck. By shimming it out a few inches won't that leave a gap between the front bumper and the grill of the truck?

Is this show for function or pretty awards?

I guess if it was me, and I was going to keep showing the truck I would to one of two things. Once would be to by another chrome front bumper and trim a couple on inches off of the end to clear the tires trying to keep the end of the bumper in line with the natural curve of the wheel flares. Second thought would be to do the same but using the painted bumper as came on the XL model truck. Then paint it to match the color of the truck either in mono or duo tone finish.

Sorry, not much help to offer at this point.

For what it's worth, you could use long bumper bolts using washers to shim it out to the distance you are looking for. These factory bumpers don't weight much. There may be some extra brackets you would want to remove at each end. But by doing this, if running down a bumpy road you could create a shimmy of a different kind due to flexing of the factory bumper.
Many of the heavy cattle ranch bumpers of that model year mounted with only four bolts using the factory mounting points.

 

It seems to me that you can remove the bumper with 4 bolts and then it just pulls off. You could get some longer bolts and then use some large nuts that the bolts will slide through to space it out. Will be kinda mickey mouse for the long haul but would be quick n easy for a show

 

The show I'm entering is just to show off the rides in my area. It's usually a classic car show but more and more offroad vehicles are starting to join up. I'm only running a shimmed bumper for the show as I can't run my 37" until I order some new rims. Will be building a new bumper set up anyways by than hopefully, don't like chrome on my pickup.