Is this going to work?(front bumper with winch)

[91renegadeyj]

i know i know hockey pucks aren't a good idea they wouldn't have worked anyway because they wouldn't completely stabilize the winch plate. if i have to i will probably fab up some steel spacer the width of the frame rails and and weld them to the bottom of the winch plate. and i thought of the washers but i figured that would weaken the bolt even more. hopefully i can just raise the fairlead enough.

 

[Bounty__Hunter]

The winch plate and fairlead will hit the bumper tube. Spacing up the winch plate only increases leverage on the mounting bolts and creates a dangerous situation.

Consider notching the bumper or removing the tube like the above pic, or using a standard hawse fairlead for clearance.

 

[dandoc]

:agree:

I've wanted to add a winch to my YJ for a while, and I've got the same type of tubular bumper as 91renegadeyj. The only options I came up with are to get the bumper that xt master showed in the picture, or cut the current bumper and cap the open ends. 91renegadeyj, if you want to keep the current look of your YJ with the tube bumper, those would be your options as well. Best of luck to you, and definately mount the winch to your frame rails.

 

[91renegadeyj]

notching the bumper or using a hawse fairlead sound like the options i would go with. i really don't want to cut the middle tube because then i will wave to add more tube in the middle of the bottom 2 tubes for support. i would rather notch it and weld in flat steel to fill the open tubing. and no question about it the winch is getting mounted to the frame.

 

[91renegadeyj]

ok i found a solution to my problem without hacking my front bumper it isn't cheap but it is cheaper then a new front bumper and winchplate. it is a body armor winch plate. i found one on tellico4x4.com for $175. here is a pic. it looks like i won't have any cleance issues.

 

[Bounty__Hunter]

It's purdy but you're still creating a lot of leverage by raising the winch that high over the frame rails. I'd be interested to see how the mount is built underneath to handle the kind of leverage generated from hard recovery pulls.