Installed a winch on my stock (plastic) Rubicon bumper - DIY writeup

[jav_eee]

One of these days I’ll get the guts (and the tools) to do this…

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[Concentric_Killa]

One of these days I’ll get the guts (and the tools) to do this…

It honestly isn't that hard if you take your time. If you buy the factory steel bumper, you need the winch plate anyways. Might as well try this and save $1200.

 

[20Silver20]

I just finished a similar project on my 2022 Gladiator Sport. Yes, it is a 2-piece bumper and the approach is similar. The metal portion appears similar or identical. I too disassembled everything and reassembled the metal portion only, but then installed the plastic - needed to slightly trim the mating side to clear the collision absorption 'cans'.

See https://www.jeepgladiatorforum.com/...per-and-a-winch-educate-me.48026/post-1018374 for a view.

Very nice work!

 

[Madtom]

Which winch is that and which LOD winch plate? Best install I’ve seen and I’d like to do the same. I’m guessing 0701 plate and rc9.0 winch. What did you use to support the hawse fair lead, lod mount?Thanks

Jaymax Really loving your winch install.. Can you PM me those pictures. I plan on using the plastic bumper if i can get away with it as you seemed to really utilize the available space to the max Great idea on rotating the clutch portion to reduce the space requirements even more.

Tom

 

[Giova92]

I'll PM you and keep off this thread...but yes LOD plate, expensive very light winch, and 1/4" steel plate across frame horns then some large flat washers to space it out exactly. Pix coming your way

Lot of guys are figuring out how to use the plastic bumper with winches, I used a LOD winch plate that fits flush with front of frame horns seems real solid and powder coating was excellent, plus price was right at $149.00……Jack
Ps: Rotating the clutch handle to rear let’s you keep bumper top area intact on some basic frame winches.

Hi Jaxmax, I find your winch installation brilliant! Can you text me in pm all the details you can provide me in order to do the same? Thanks in advance

 

[1JeepFamily]

Thanks for the writeups, y'all! Gonna try it myself in the new year with:
- Harbor Freight's Apex Badland ZXR 9500 that was on sale last week.
- LoD's JWP0701 Winch Plate from Quadratec.
- A generic fairlead mount from Harbor Freight.

Happy to be finally doing this! I've been holding onto a Superwinch Winch2Go with a 4,000 lbs straight line pull. They say it can reach max pulling capacity of 8,000 lbs using an included snatch block... but I've also seen Project Farm's winch test video—so I know the advertised strength is a best-case scenario. I also doubt the Winch2Go has the rope length to use a snatch block in 95% of recovery situations.

 

[AverageJoe]

Thanks for the writeups, y'all! Gonna try it myself in the new year with:
- Harbor Freight's Apex Badland ZXR 9500 that was on sale last week.
- LoD's JWP0701 Winch Plate from Quadratec.
- A generic fairlead mount from Harbor Freight.

I went with the LoD plate and the Harbor Freight fairlead mount. You may find that you will need spacers between that fairlead mount and the outer bumper skin. I went with Max4x4Chris method of using 2 fairleads from Amazon as spacers to fill that gap. They're hidden inside the bumper and take up the space very nicely. Or you can use steel shims to fill that space. You will need to buy longer fairlead bolts as well. They will need to go through your outer fairlead, the plastic skin, the spacers, and the fairlead mount and sandwich everything together as a solid unit.

Good luck! You will love the result.

 

[1JeepFamily]

I went with the LoD plate and the Harbor Freight fairlead mount. You may find that you will need spacers between that fairlead mount and the outer bumper skin. I went with Max4x4Chris method of using 2 fairleads from Amazon as spacers to fill that gap. They're hidden inside the bumper and take up the space very nicely. Or you can use steel shims to fill that space. You will need to buy longer fairlead bolts as well. They will need to go through your outer fairlead, the plastic skin, the spacers, and the fairlead mount and sandwich everything together as a solid unit.

Good luck! You will love the result.

So rad. I love this community. Thanks for saving me the guesswork and extra home Depot trips!

 

[wayner313]

I ran the stock bumper with a stubby kit and a Rock Hard 4X4 winch plate on my JKU for years before I got my JT and liked it a lot. Pictured here on my old Jeep in Moab...

These days, I'm a fan of keeping things as stock as possible. I've always found I need a steel rear bumper more than a steel front when wheeling, and I like the extra weight savings of not hauling around an extra 80 - 100lbs on the front of my Jeep. I pulled my winch off my JKU when I sold it and it's been sitting in my garage ever since.

I considered the RH4X4 plate for my Gladiator, which mounts on top of the plastic bumper, but I have a diesel and was concerned about blocking any more of the radiator than I had to. So I set about looking for a recessed winch plate and a way to fit it to the stock plastic bumper. I settled on the Warn plate (the one that is supposed to go with the stock steel bumper) because the fairlead mount is embedded in the plate, unlike some of the other options out there. This is important because a plastic bumper obviously won't hold up to mounting a fairlead.

First things first--take the old bumper off and test fit the winch plate. The stock skid plate comes off too, for now. Good news--it fits! All the hardware stays loose for now until everything is installed into place.

Next up, start taking apart the old bumper. The stock Rubicon plastic bumper is 3 pieces (technically 4 if you include the weather guards): the outer fascia, the internal hard plastic, and the steel frame. After popping off the weather guards...

...disconnecting the fog lights, and removing 8 nuts holding the steel frame in...

...you'll need to follow the small screws/bolts around the outside of the plastic frame to end up with the 3 pieces.

From there, I started cutting. The Warn winch plate protrudes quite a bit on the bottom, preventing the bumper from fitting on, so I ended up chopping the middle out of both the metal frame and the internal plastic frame. (In hindsight, I may have been OK to leave the top channel/lip on the metal frame, but I'm not 100% sure about that.) On the metal frame I also had to remove some of the lower lip, as the wings wouldn't go on otherwise. I used a sawzall for the metal frame and a hacksaw for the plastic. Both of these pieces are mounted through the tow hooks and ultimately attach to the outer plastic fascia.

I hit the steel wings with some spray paint to clean them up and did a quick test fit to ensure the metal wings and tow hooks would fit as intended.

From there, the last thing to do before refitting the bumper was to cut out the opening for the winch and fairlead. On the Warn plate, the fairlead "attachment" is fairly large so you have to remove quite a bit of material. I used a combination of a hack saw and a razor blade (scoring and then slicing) to open up the plastic fascia and cleaned up the edges with a blowtorch.

From there, everything is ready to go back on. Initially I tried reassembling the bumper off the Jeep and putting it on all in one piece, but the tow hooks needed some convincing to go back in and I didn't want to smash the plastic fascia with a hammer. I ended up installing the metal wings and tow hooks first, then shimmying on the rest of the bumper (internal plastic wings bolted to the fascia). The winch plate and all the associated brackets were fully tightened down at this by a few ugga duggas of my impact gun.

Once I bolted the plastic internal supports to the steel wings, I put the plastic weather covers and stock skid back on as well. The fairlead opening on the plastic fascia looks a little crooked here with the camera angle, but it's square-ish in person.

Finally, I installed the fairlead and license plate holder (included with the winch plate).

And that's that! Recessed winch mounted on the stock plastic bumper using an off-the-shelf winch plate. I still need to wire it up and spool my cable on, but otherwise it's ready to go.

Observations--the winch plate bolts directly into the frame (as it should) and is strong as hell. I like the location more than the top-of-bumper mount I had on my JKU, especially with all the cooling issues on the diesel. The tow hooks are bolted directly back into the stock location and are unaffected by any of the cutting or modifications.

That said, the "bumper" itself (or what's left of it) is really just for looks and serves basically as a glorified fog light holder after these modifications. With the wings attached independently and not connected together, you lose what little strength the stock bumper had. I'm not convinced it had much strength to begin with--it had quite a bit of flex even fully assembled off the Jeep. But in my experience, most hard hits off-road come where the bumper is bolted into the frame or under at the frame horns, which are still plenty strong here.

If you're expecting to take a direct hit to the wing and be fine, you'll probably be disappointed, but I have found that the pliability of the plastic bumper can sometimes be an advantage. I cut the ends off my JKU bumper and did a stubby kit so I didn't actually have any material there anyways. I would've preferred to do that with this bumper but the location of the fog lights makes that impossible.

As long as you're aware of those drawbacks, I think this is a good mod and saves a lot of weight over a steel bumper. The winch mounting point and tow hooks are just fine, which is all I care about anyways. The rest of it is just for looks...

Thank you for the inspiration!
I used the same Warn plate but added a spacer between the tow hooks. This moved the bumper out far enough to only have to cut the Fairlead hole.

 

[KQL]

Thank you for the inspiration!
I used the same Warn plate but added a spacer between the tow hooks. This moved the bumper out far enough to only have to cut the Fairlead hole.

Looks like you could use a link to this edge trim if you wanted to clean up the appearance of the cut in the plastic. I used this myself and it’s been on for 3 years now
https://a.co/d/8kLXPzF

 

[McRuss]

I ran the stock bumper with a stubby kit and a Rock Hard 4X4 winch plate on my JKU for years before I got my JT and liked it a lot. Pictured here on my old Jeep in Moab...

These days, I'm a fan of keeping things as stock as possible. I've always found I need a steel rear bumper more than a steel front when wheeling, and I like the extra weight savings of not hauling around an extra 80 - 100lbs on the front of my Jeep. I pulled my winch off my JKU when I sold it and it's been sitting in my garage ever since.

I considered the RH4X4 plate for my Gladiator, which mounts on top of the plastic bumper, but I have a diesel and was concerned about blocking any more of the radiator than I had to. So I set about looking for a recessed winch plate and a way to fit it to the stock plastic bumper. I settled on the Warn plate (the one that is supposed to go with the stock steel bumper) because the fairlead mount is embedded in the plate, unlike some of the other options out there. This is important because a plastic bumper obviously won't hold up to mounting a fairlead.

First things first--take the old bumper off and test fit the winch plate. The stock skid plate comes off too, for now. Good news--it fits! All the hardware stays loose for now until everything is installed into place.

Next up, start taking apart the old bumper. The stock Rubicon plastic bumper is 3 pieces (technically 4 if you include the weather guards): the outer fascia, the internal hard plastic, and the steel frame. After popping off the weather guards...

...disconnecting the fog lights, and removing 8 nuts holding the steel frame in...

...you'll need to follow the small screws/bolts around the outside of the plastic frame to end up with the 3 pieces.

From there, I started cutting. The Warn winch plate protrudes quite a bit on the bottom, preventing the bumper from fitting on, so I ended up chopping the middle out of both the metal frame and the internal plastic frame. (In hindsight, I may have been OK to leave the top channel/lip on the metal frame, but I'm not 100% sure about that.) On the metal frame I also had to remove some of the lower lip, as the wings wouldn't go on otherwise. I used a sawzall for the metal frame and a hacksaw for the plastic. Both of these pieces are mounted through the tow hooks and ultimately attach to the outer plastic fascia.

I hit the steel wings with some spray paint to clean them up and did a quick test fit to ensure the metal wings and tow hooks would fit as intended.

From there, the last thing to do before refitting the bumper was to cut out the opening for the winch and fairlead. On the Warn plate, the fairlead "attachment" is fairly large so you have to remove quite a bit of material. I used a combination of a hack saw and a razor blade (scoring and then slicing) to open up the plastic fascia and cleaned up the edges with a blowtorch.

From there, everything is ready to go back on. Initially I tried reassembling the bumper off the Jeep and putting it on all in one piece, but the tow hooks needed some convincing to go back in and I didn't want to smash the plastic fascia with a hammer. I ended up installing the metal wings and tow hooks first, then shimmying on the rest of the bumper (internal plastic wings bolted to the fascia). The winch plate and all the associated brackets were fully tightened down at this by a few ugga duggas of my impact gun.

Once I bolted the plastic internal supports to the steel wings, I put the plastic weather covers and stock skid back on as well. The fairlead opening on the plastic fascia looks a little crooked here with the camera angle, but it's square-ish in person.

Finally, I installed the fairlead and license plate holder (included with the winch plate).

And that's that! Recessed winch mounted on the stock plastic bumper using an off-the-shelf winch plate. I still need to wire it up and spool my cable on, but otherwise it's ready to go.

Observations--the winch plate bolts directly into the frame (as it should) and is strong as hell. I like the location more than the top-of-bumper mount I had on my JKU, especially with all the cooling issues on the diesel. The tow hooks are bolted directly back into the stock location and are unaffected by any of the cutting or modifications.

That said, the "bumper" itself (or what's left of it) is really just for looks and serves basically as a glorified fog light holder after these modifications. With the wings attached independently and not connected together, you lose what little strength the stock bumper had. I'm not convinced it had much strength to begin with--it had quite a bit of flex even fully assembled off the Jeep. But in my experience, most hard hits off-road come where the bumper is bolted into the frame or under at the frame horns, which are still plenty strong here.

If you're expecting to take a direct hit to the wing and be fine, you'll probably be disappointed, but I have found that the pliability of the plastic bumper can sometimes be an advantage. I cut the ends off my JKU bumper and did a stubby kit so I didn't actually have any material there anyways. I would've preferred to do that with this bumper but the location of the fog lights makes that impossible.

As long as you're aware of those drawbacks, I think this is a good mod and saves a lot of weight over a steel bumper. The winch mounting point and tow hooks are just fine, which is all I care about anyways. The rest of it is just for looks...

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