Howdy Jim,
I have the factory plastic Rubicon bumper and factory steel skid plate. I wanted to keep weight down and use what I already had. I installed the Warn EVO 12S, Maximus-3 winch plate, Go Rhino 332000T Rockline Textured Black Fairlead Mount Plate (to take up some space between the winch and the plastic bumper), Tuffy license plate holder, Maximus-3 Tow/D-ring brackets. I bought the winch/mount plate kit from RubiTrux. Great price, no sales tax, and free shipping. I had to cut up the plastic and steel factory bumper, but the mounting plate fit perfect. I got the idea from a gentleman, Toby W, on the JLForums website who made his own winch plate and kept his plastic bumper. https://www.jlwranglerforums.com/forum/threads/winch-mount-for-plastic-bumper.7605/
Hello Mr. Cob, I will answer your questions.
Howdy Jim,Hello Mr. Cob, I will answer your questions.
1. Yes, it is the factory Plastic Rubicon bumper. I don't know if the plastic bumper on the Sport or other models would work, but I believe they would. The shapes of the base bumper and the Rubicon plastic bumper are very similar.
2. Behind the plastic cover, there is another plastic piece that is called the Bumper Reinforcement and behind that is a metal plate that is called the Bumper Beam. I am attaching a photo of the two pieces after they are cut. Both the Bumper Reinforcement and the Bumper Beam have to be cut. I just used a cut off wheel on the plastic and metal piece to remove the material between the two frame rails.
3. When you remove all of the bumper pieces, you are left with the two frame rail members that the bumper mounts on. These frame rail members are the same on all Gladiators (and probably Wranglers, too). Any winch plate should mount between these two frame members.
4. After installing the winch plate between the two frame rails and putting the winch on it, I found that the distance between the front of the winch did not allow me to mount the plastic bumper cover directly to winch. This might not be a problem with another winch plate. I added the Go Rhino 332000T Rockline Textured Black Fairlead Mount Plate to the winch plate hoping to take up the space between the front of the winch and the plastic cover. It helped but did not reach the plastic cover. There was still a gap, so I added another fairlead to the front of the Go Rhino plate and the plastic cover. You can't see it unless you look down from the top of the bumper (it is red in my pictures). After installing the plastic cover, I added the Maximus fairlead plate and the Warn Fairlead to the front of the bumper. And I also added a license plate mount.
5. The gentleman that I got the idea from built his own winch plate, so he was able to extend the nose of the plate to reach the plastic bumper, He didn't need pieces to fill in the gap.
6. It would have been much simpler to just replace the plastic bumper with a metal one, but I wanted to save weight if possible. I would have to add a winch plate regardless, unless I went with an aftermarket bumper that included it. I believe I saved about 30 pounds.
Let me know if you have any other questions.
I agree with your idea. I just didnāt have the capability to fabricate the spacer, so I built it using individual parts. Also, another winch mounting plate such as the Warn plate might eliminate the need for the spacer. Good luck.
Itās been a while but I used all provided hardware except the fairlead bolts. wires were routed under the grill and up the by the frame rail then along the fender wall.
