Well I was getting impatient waiting on my Smittybilt SRC Grill Guard front bumper to ship, so I decided to try my hand at mounting my winch and keeping the stock bumper for now. I didn't want to pay an outrageous amount of money for the Warn winch mount plate, so I took a chance and bought the Harbor Freight "Winch Mount for Jeep" item number 3444-1VGA seen here



It says it fits "...all Jeep Wrangler models from 1987 through 2003" according to their web site, but it was only $29.99 + shipping and looked generic enough I thought I could make it work. Well I did, but getting everything done wasn't the easiest task, but in the end it only cost me $35 or so for the winch plate and another $5.00 for six 1/2" grade 8 bolts, nuts, and flat/lock washers. Those were used to mount the winch plate to the top of the frame rails. Sorry I didn't take pics while I was doing it.

Basically what I did 1st was remove the front bumper (plastic outer skin and metal inner.) The winch plate I laid directly on top of the frame rails. Luckily, the outer holes in the plate lined up great with both frame rails. I put the metal skin back in place, then laid the plate down to see where I needed to trim. I marked the metal, then bolted the inner skin back to the Jeep, then trimmed the metal skin with a reciprocating saw so it would clear the plate. I took it back off, then scooted the winch plate as far forward as I could (the front of the plate was against the top side of the front bumper mount plates). Then I drilled six 1/2" holes (3 per side). I used my grade 8 bolts, nuts, and washers and bolted the plate down. After that I bolted the fairlead to the plate, then bolted the winch on. Then I eyeballed the plastic bumper skin and started cutting it for clearance around the winch and fairlead. After much trimming and re-trimming to get it to fit, I got it bolted back on. I started to do the stubby bumper mod at the same time. but I was tired of working on it at that point so I quit. Here are some pictures of the results. I am pretty happy with the way it turned out. Excuse the dirty Jeep, I haven't cleaned it since last weekend's outing, and I'm going wheeling again tomorrow.


















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very nice job.

 

That looks darn right professional.

 

Dang, that looks good. Somewhere, I read that the electronic disconnects pose a problem for mounting winches to the stock bumper. Did you notice anything like that?

 

Looks good, I like the way it is recessed in the plastic. I think it looks better that way.

 

Dude, you rock. I've been waiting for someone else to try this before I started cutting up my bumper. How long were the 1/2" bolts you used on the frame rails?

 

Thanks guys! I need to go ahead and do the stubby mod and plastic weld some end caps on.

The 1/2" bolts I used were 1.5" long. I used a flat washer under the bolt head, and a lock washer on the nut side.
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If you do the stubby mod, you should look into re-using the ends of the bumper you cut off, as endcaps. They look to be the same size all the way to the end. Just cut about 8-10 inches off the the scrap ends. Depending on how much you cut off and re-use, it might be a stubby or mid length.
Hope this made sense the way I described it

I would love to see a pic of this.

 

That is really nice and seeing it prompted me to do the same thing. hopefully you will be willing to post help if I run into trouble.

 

I'd be happy to answer any questions you have. It's not quite as simple as what I posted, but if you are able and willing to tackle it you should be able to handle it. Just be sure to have a reciprocating saw and a nice sharp razor blade style knife handy.