I should post a little more info for anyone still following along, or maybe someone in the future. Some lessons learned, if you will...
First, the outer front bumper brackets will not mount to the frame with the bumper installed. My truck was missing the outer brackets when I bought it, but I sourced some used ones last year and installed them in combination with the brush guard. The front bumper must come off to get those outer brackets on to the frame. This was the simple/obvious lesson.
Second, I should've rotated the cage nuts 90 degrees in the brush guard to prevent them from getting knocked out of position. While jimmying the brush guard up and down to find the threads with the mounting bolt, one of the steel tabs that retain the cage nut in the brush guard got unclipped. This happened because I initially had the steel tabs on the cage nuts above and below the square opening in the brush guard. If the steel retaining tabs were on the left and right sides of the opening, my cage nuts would've stayed put through the assembly process. I did have to rotate them all so the retainer clips were oriented vertically.
It wasn't as straight forward as I anticipated; a lot of messing around and hand bending those cage nut retainer clips. The challenges were multiplied by the lack of clearance behind the upper cage nuts in the brush guard. I can't recall the correct length mounting bolts, but it required a second trip to the hardware store because an extra 1/2" (or maybe 1/4") of threads was too much and caused the bolt to bottom out before it was tight.
Hopefully this educates somebody.
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