RumbleGoat
NAXJA Forum User
- Location
- Richland
A tiny bit of background first off: My project was designed to be a few things:
1. Cheap
2. Daily Drivable even when it is being worked on
3. A SLEEPER
I've been wheelin' for many, many years and really wanted to get back to driving rather than pointing and shooting my Jeep. So, so far, my little XJ has locked axles with 3.55 gears (from an Auto, but it is a manual), 760x Shafts, external slave cylinder mod, 3" lift, 31s, rock sliders, leather seats. . .you know, the basics. I wheel it at least 1 time per month and drive it to work every single day. OK. . .on with the project.
So. . .I needed a winch, but the nature of the "project" wouldn't allow me to put a big ol' gnarly winch bumper on the front of Orville (that's my XJ's name because it sounded like a popcorn popper when I go it). I wanted it to be as stealthy as possible and as light as could be. There is a lot of internet lore around XJ's ripping off their unibodies with winches. . .it is almost complete BS. I did see a stock bumper get ripped off by a tow strap, but let's face it: A winch is held on by 4x 3/8" grade 5 bolts in single sheer in EVERY case. /end/
so, I went to work with my tape measure and all the shiz I could steal, borrow, and beg (again, the theme here is CHEAP and STOCK(ish) looking)
Tow hook mounts, carved up with a skinny wheel and flipped side to side, and a TJ winch plate (TJ frame rails and XJ unirails are the same width. . .who woulda thunk?? LOL) netted me this:
The tow hook brackets, in addition to using the stock bumper bolts, use 1 1/2" bolt all the way through the uniframe rail on either side. So. . .6x 3/8 grade 8 bolts and 2x 1/2" bolts of unknown grade (came with the kit).
Then. . .I put it up to see what was what. . .this is AFTER about a million hours of laying on my back with a tape measure and my cell phone.
Obviously, some stuff is in the way there. So. . .
And then some creative cutting on the bumper to clear the fairlead, etc. . .
It is all bolted up now. I won't be using a roller fairlead because I'm getting a few ' of synthetic. The combination of the way the plate came out and an aluminum fairlead makes it so I can put the license plate over the whole works.
Here's what it looks like with the winch. One thing you can't see here is that the winch plate, held on by 4 1/2" grade 8 bolts, just drops straight down with the winch attached for service. The clutch handle is rotated forward (I'm still thinking about a "key" to actuate it) and I'm going to clock the motor backwards so I can more easily get the hot wires off with it still under the Jeep.
The license plate covers the whole center area pretty well. . .And here is how it looks all done and put together. There are still a few things to tweak, but they won't affect how it looks from the outside. One change here is that the license plate will either get a couple of 1/4 turns or just captured nuts so I can zip it off when I hit the trail. Day to day, the shackle will just hang behind the license plate.
Now, please understand that it is NOT done. I need to get the winch wired up and get a steering box brace in there. The solinoid pack will live under the hood and the winch will be hard wired to a switch on the dash. If I ever feel like I need to control it externally, I'll get a wireless set up. The brace along with the big chunk of 1/4" plate should be stiffer than the chunk of factory crossmember that I removed. That said, I'm going to beef up the front bumper bolts to take a little of the stress off of those two layers of sheetmetal.
IF you were to want to really reinforce the unibody, you could use something like C-Rock plates along with an aftermarket bumper and good motor mounts, but that didn't meet my design parameters.
Please. . .flame away.
1. Cheap
2. Daily Drivable even when it is being worked on
3. A SLEEPER
I've been wheelin' for many, many years and really wanted to get back to driving rather than pointing and shooting my Jeep. So, so far, my little XJ has locked axles with 3.55 gears (from an Auto, but it is a manual), 760x Shafts, external slave cylinder mod, 3" lift, 31s, rock sliders, leather seats. . .you know, the basics. I wheel it at least 1 time per month and drive it to work every single day. OK. . .on with the project.
So. . .I needed a winch, but the nature of the "project" wouldn't allow me to put a big ol' gnarly winch bumper on the front of Orville (that's my XJ's name because it sounded like a popcorn popper when I go it). I wanted it to be as stealthy as possible and as light as could be. There is a lot of internet lore around XJ's ripping off their unibodies with winches. . .it is almost complete BS. I did see a stock bumper get ripped off by a tow strap, but let's face it: A winch is held on by 4x 3/8" grade 5 bolts in single sheer in EVERY case. /end/
so, I went to work with my tape measure and all the shiz I could steal, borrow, and beg (again, the theme here is CHEAP and STOCK(ish) looking)
Tow hook mounts, carved up with a skinny wheel and flipped side to side, and a TJ winch plate (TJ frame rails and XJ unirails are the same width. . .who woulda thunk?? LOL) netted me this:
The tow hook brackets, in addition to using the stock bumper bolts, use 1 1/2" bolt all the way through the uniframe rail on either side. So. . .6x 3/8 grade 8 bolts and 2x 1/2" bolts of unknown grade (came with the kit).
Then. . .I put it up to see what was what. . .this is AFTER about a million hours of laying on my back with a tape measure and my cell phone.
Obviously, some stuff is in the way there. So. . .
And then some creative cutting on the bumper to clear the fairlead, etc. . .
It is all bolted up now. I won't be using a roller fairlead because I'm getting a few ' of synthetic. The combination of the way the plate came out and an aluminum fairlead makes it so I can put the license plate over the whole works.
Here's what it looks like with the winch. One thing you can't see here is that the winch plate, held on by 4 1/2" grade 8 bolts, just drops straight down with the winch attached for service. The clutch handle is rotated forward (I'm still thinking about a "key" to actuate it) and I'm going to clock the motor backwards so I can more easily get the hot wires off with it still under the Jeep.
The license plate covers the whole center area pretty well. . .And here is how it looks all done and put together. There are still a few things to tweak, but they won't affect how it looks from the outside. One change here is that the license plate will either get a couple of 1/4 turns or just captured nuts so I can zip it off when I hit the trail. Day to day, the shackle will just hang behind the license plate.
Now, please understand that it is NOT done. I need to get the winch wired up and get a steering box brace in there. The solinoid pack will live under the hood and the winch will be hard wired to a switch on the dash. If I ever feel like I need to control it externally, I'll get a wireless set up. The brace along with the big chunk of 1/4" plate should be stiffer than the chunk of factory crossmember that I removed. That said, I'm going to beef up the front bumper bolts to take a little of the stress off of those two layers of sheetmetal.
IF you were to want to really reinforce the unibody, you could use something like C-Rock plates along with an aftermarket bumper and good motor mounts, but that didn't meet my design parameters.
Please. . .flame away.
