Chris M

I talked to a guy at Qtec and he told me that the Warn tow hooks I had asked about would fit on my Rugged Ridge stubby tube bumper. I was a bit concerned but went ahead with his advice and bought them. They didn't fit as they couldn't even fit over the predrilled holes without banging into the front hoop on the bumper. So I called Qtec and got a little hacked off at them for the bad advice. I'll handle that outside this forum though.

Anyway, I'm debating drilling into my winch plate in an effort to to still be able to mount the tow hooks. The holes would probably be drilled 1/2" to 1" away from the edges of the plate. I'm concerned should I ever have to use them that the force that far out on the winch plate will pull it apart and ultimately be an expensive repair.

Would it be okay to drill that far out on the winch plate in an effort to mount the tow hooks, or should I just ship them back and be done with this issue? A new bumper isn't an option at this point. I've had this one for two months.

Grand Umpah

I guess the only concern that I would have is that this adds additional stress points to the winch plate and might hasten a possible failure.
Granted, most of us don't utilize the winch or tow hooks all that often, so perhaps I'm being too conservative, but having different points of attachment for winch versus tow hooks seems prudent.