JCR Unibody tie in brackets

[dfjeepster]

Not sure if this should be in tech or not but I picked up a set of these a few months ago, used but never installed, and planned on putting them in to help stiffen the steering box mount especially with the 35s and provide a good base for mounting my homemade bumper when I finish it up. Well today was my birthday and it amazingly was about 55 degrees this afternoon so I was able to get a little jeep time away from the wife and kids and threw these on along with my new Curt rear hitch. The JCR plates are nice and while not super beefy they will definitely provide some much needed strength to the front rails. The tie in to the stock front bumper bolts, the steering box bolts, the sway bar bolts (which some stiffening plates sadly ignore), and the rearmost hole. They also come with a bracket which ties the side plates into the front crossmember as well for a little added strength. The plates come unpainted and I had a pic of them after I gave them a quick spray job a while back but can't find it now so I'll post up some installed pics and give a quick rundown of my installation. I have already cut my fenders a lot so I just removed the inner fender brace in the front, if you keep this it will need to be modified or trim the plate to fit around it. Luckily my steering box had been replaced in the past year so my bolts came out fine and I had no issues but be prepared for frozen or broken bolts and a broken spacer plate if your box hasn't been touched in a while. Now my jeep is the dreaded 96 model year where nothing is supposed to line up and drilling is almost always required but it must have been my lucky day because all of the holes lined up fine and did not require any modification to the plates. I did have to hit two of the front crossmember holes with a unibit to open them up a hair but this was just because of the factory alignment in the fold and was no big issue at all. JCR has a good install writeup on their website but heres my tips:
Loosely install the steering box bolts first making sure that the spacer plate is in the correct position
Then loosely install all the other bolts making sure they have clearance
Install the front crossmember tie in plates and all their hardware as well
Once all the bolts are in and line up start tightening everything up starting with the steering box bolts
Anyways here are some installed pics

I am really happy with the plates and can't wait to finish my bumper and mount it up to them. I am considering adding another hole or two on the passenger side but haven't decided if its necessary, I think it should be fine as is.

 

[MrShaft696]

those are nice tie ins, good set up to build a bumper off of.

 

[GrimmJeeper]

I ran these with my JCR bumper on my last jeep, that was before they started the tab that goes under the frame rail. I was very happy with them, definitely money well spent.