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any suggestions on front tow hook

You need to have the bracket kit in order to install Tow Hooks on an XJ!Other alternatives would be a new bumper or a front receiver hitch(which will cost alot of ground clearance).
 
I have my stock front bumper and a front hitch and lost only a little clearance. It even acts as a protective skid for your engine and lower part of your radiator. I would highly suggest getting a hitch over tow hooks. Much more durable than tow hooks and instead of pulling from one side of your jeep you are using both sides of the jeep which makes it much more stout. I purchased my drawtite hitch for 128.00 from a local drawtite dealer. Tow hooks will cost you around 75.00 to 100.00 so I would spend the little more money for something more reliable. If you would like a picture of how mine looks and being used let me know. The front hitch is not compatible with the front engine skid plate if you have one or were thinking of getting one. Any more questions let me know.

Kim.
 
85xjwoody said:
I have my stock front bumper and a front hitch and lost only a little clearance. It even acts as a protective skid for your engine and lower part of your radiator. I would highly suggest getting a hitch over tow hooks. Much more durable than tow hooks and instead of pulling from one side of your jeep you are using both sides of the jeep which makes it much more stout. I purchased my drawtite hitch for 128.00 from a local drawtite dealer. Tow hooks will cost you around 75.00 to 100.00 so I would spend the little more money for something more reliable. If you would like a picture of how mine looks and being used let me know. The front hitch is not compatible with the front engine skid plate if you have one or were thinking of getting one. Any more questions let me know.

Kim.

I wouldn't go as far as to say a hitch is more "reliable" than tow hooks. And when you do pull you loop the strap through both hooks and then back through the open end, so you are still "pulling" on both sides..............:lecture:

A hitch is another option, although he was asking about tow hooks...........:cheers:
 
91 Jeep Project said:
I wouldn't go as far as to say a hitch is more "reliable" than tow hooks. And when you do pull you loop the strap through both hooks and then back through the open end, so you are still "pulling" on both sides..............:lecture:

A hitch is another option, although he was asking about tow hooks...........:cheers:

Don't get me wrong, tow hooks get the job done but my hitch is rated to have up to 9000lbs of winch pulling on it which in my opinion is to much for even both tow hooks to support. I have used my hitch alot and have even had a warn 12000lb winch have to strap to a tree and then pull me out when a warn 9000lb winch could not get me out. There are so many uses for a hitch versus tow hooks. Why not spend a little more money and get something that is more versatile and will last longer in bad stuck situations. Tow hooks will bend under that much pressure, I have seen this in person.

Kim.
 
85xjwoody said:
Don't get me wrong, tow hooks get the job done but my hitch is rated to have up to 9000lbs of winch pulling on it which in my opinion is to much for even both tow hooks to support. I have used my hitch alot and have even had a warn 12000lb winch have to strap to a tree and then pull me out when a warn 9000lb winch could not get me out. There are so many uses for a hitch versus tow hooks. Why not spend a little more money and get something that is more versatile and will last longer in bad stuck situations. Tow hooks will bend under that much pressure, I have seen this in person.

Kim.

I'm not negating a hitch as an option. But you are just spewing crap about tow hooks. C4x4 tow hooks have the same mounts that they use on their winch bumpers. A hitch is not gonna be any stronger than that. And what the hell were you doing that a 9k winch couldn't get you out? And just another thought. A receiver shackle mounted to a hitch is no stronger than a hook. If you bend a hook, you will be bending the shackle as well. And if your hitch is only rated to 9k, how did you use a 12k winch and not break anything? (These are rhetorical questions)

End point, a tow hitch is an option. But there is NOTHING wrong with a good set of tow hooks.......... :lecture:
 
91 Jeep Project said:
I'm not negating a hitch as an option. But you are just spewing crap about tow hooks. C4x4 tow hooks have the same mounts that they use on their winch bumpers. A hitch is not gonna be any stronger than that. And what the hell were you doing that a 9k winch couldn't get you out? And just another thought. A receiver shackle mounted to a hitch is no stronger than a hook. If you bend a hook, you will be bending the shackle as well. And if your hitch is only rated to 9k, how did you use a 12k winch and not break anything? (These are rhetorical questions)

End point, a tow hitch is an option. But there is NOTHING wrong with a good set of tow hooks.......... :lecture:

Sorry if you thought that I was just spewing crap about tow hooks, which I never was. Tow hooks work excellent if you recall I already said. I was stating that a hitch has alot more things you can do with it for only a few more dollars and is as I have already said it is my opinion that the front reciever hitch is more durable than a tow hook. The brackets for the tow hooks are what are the strong point not the tow hook. The tow hook is very stout but that will be the giving point not the bracket. On a reciever hitch I use a shackle that is rated for 10,000lbs which again in my opinion is stronger than a hook on a bracket. When I was getting pulled out by the 12,000lb winch I was stuck in a swamp halfway up my door and flooded my interior. This was at the Pipeline in Mountain, Wisconsin. The winch vehicle was a 95 full size bronco with seven inches of lift and 37 inch MTR's. He was strapped to a tree and barely got me out. I told my friend that I would try it if he would pull me out. I tried and got stuck so he came around the front because I had less distance in the mud to go to get out versus going backwards. He hooked up and tried to pull with his 9000lb winch and couldn't get me out so he tried to winch from the back and couldn't do it. So another buddy with the 12,000lb warn winch came from the front and strapped to a tree and pulled me out barely. That is how I know my front hitch can hold up to that much pull. Nothing bent or came lose or any damage anywhere. I am not trying to argue I am just stating that a front hitch has more options for it than tow hooks for just a few more dollars. It barely shows at all and does not take away much clearance at all. :) :wave:
 
Rusty's towhooks come with the bracket and all the hardware to install them. You can have them on in less than an hour and they work great.

clay
 
91 Jeep Project said:
End point, a tow hitch is an option. But there is NOTHING wrong with a good set of tow hooks.......... :lecture:

Okay. As a factory tow hook owner / user, I'm gonna throw in my $0.02 on the debate.

My personal opinion is that tow hooks work great if you don't have a front receiver. I've got the factory skidplate, so going to a front hitch is out of the question for now - the only way to do it is by replacing the front bumper with one with an integral receiver, and there's other stuff on the XJ I want to get to first.

My hooks have held up to dragging a half-dozen vehicles ranging from ATVs to Wrangelrs to fullsize pickups out of mud and off of sand berms. I have yet to experience any bending or breaking, and have no intention of getting rid of them - after all, they are a solid recovery point and certainly better than nothing at all. But I do know that it's a definite possibility that they'll fail during a pull, and that makes me *very* careful as to how I use them - straight pulls only wherever possible, going easy on the throttle, doing everything before the pull necessary to loosen up the stuck vehicle and ease the pull.

However, the one big advantage of a front hitch is that when used with a shackle, the pulling forces are being distributed across both frame rails, not just one as with hooks. Yeah, you could loop both ends of the strap over the hooks and pass the middle part through the shackle or hook on the vehicle being recovered, but that's pretty much asking for the strap to fail during the pull. And yes, there's also the versatility issue of being able to plug in accessories.

IMHO neither one is necessarily better than the other since there are advantages and disadvantages to both. Once my tow hooks hit the end of their service life, though, I'll start weighing up the options on whether or not they should be replaced with new ones or just taken out of the equation altogether in favour of something else. YMMV.
 
91 Jeep Project said:
And when you do pull you loop the strap through both hooks and then back through the open end, so you are still "pulling" on both sides..............
Straps aren't designed or intended to be used that way, so you're asking for strap failure. And doing it that way results in the strap pulling the hooks inwards toward each other, and the brackets aren't designed to resist that.

I don't know about in your part of the country, but I'm 61 years old and have been around Jeeps for more than 50 of those years, and I have never yet seen anyone use a strap the way you're describing. It doesn't sound very safe to me.
 
I recently made some for myself. Made a solid brackett (is that the correct spelling! :) ). Welded on an extencsion that go trough the original bumper. Have shackles at the end of those. Mounted the bracketts where the original bracketts for the bumper are placed. Added two extra holes. Mounted the bracketts for the bumper on the outside of these. Works great.

Picture number 1 and 3 are of my XJ whith the bracketts just installed:

http://www.offroad.no/snitz/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=34412
 
I went with the Rusty's tow hooks and brackets. Pulled me up some pretty steep stuff in Moab in the pouring rain. Still open and with bald BFG's. Someday when I have the $$$, I'll get a good front bumper with a reciever, but for now the tow hooks work just fine.
 
Eagle said:
Straps aren't designed or intended to be used that way, so you're asking for strap failure. And doing it that way results in the strap pulling the hooks inwards toward each other, and the brackets aren't designed to resist that.

I don't know about in your part of the country, but I'm 61 years old and have been around Jeeps for more than 50 of those years, and I have never yet seen anyone use a strap the way you're describing. It doesn't sound very safe to me.

Interesting. I saw it twice this weekend, on a naxja run (not our guys doing it, but still saw it). I've seen four wheel parts suggesting doing it this way while selling recovery straps too.
 
with regards to pulling with a strap from both tow hooks..........its called a bridle, a tree strap works good for this, ideally you will want the apex of the angle to be about 6ft away from the front of the vehicle, as this will lessen the inwards strain on the tow hooks/mounts, by using a bridle you are distributing the applied load to both the hooks and mounts, its is a common practice in recovery operations, primarily in industrial and military applications
 
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