alancamby

looks great

What thickness of steel are you using? Make sure that the winch plate is plenty thick. I would use 1/4" for this part.
What size hole are you using for the shakle mounts?
Do you have a Rubicon? Make sure you leave clearance for disco motor.
Here is the mounting template I made when I was working on my front bumper. Note that the top holes are spaced further than the bottom.
Good luck.

alancamby

This is my homemade bumper depth. That measurement is 7 9/16" ( Picture looks less than that)

o7jk

nice design. I wish i had the skills/tools/ CAD ability to do something like this. Post up picks when it's on you JK

noot

Thanks for the Q's. I think I've got them all answered.

Planning on using 3/16" for everything, with the exception of the shackle mounts. I've thought about making the front (where the winch mounts) 1/4", but this would significantly increase the weight. I've talked to a few people that say 3/16" is enough, but that's definitely debatable.

Shackle mount holes are 1.1", mounts will be made from 1" steel plate.

I do have a rubicon. The bottom of the bumper is only 3.5" 'deep', so there's plenty of room for the disco. I do plan on adding a skidplate that goes from the bumper to the cross-member, and further back, but that's step 2.

Below is my mount w/ measurements (it's the driver side mount, looking at the jeep from the front). A few small differences from yours.
I'm making 0.6" holes, except for the top-outer hole, which will be .5" (as per the jeep's mount).

My original hand-drawn measurements have more info... specifically that none of the holes are "square". The bottom holes aren't horizontally-aligned, the inner holes aren't vertically-aligned. The inner-bottom hole (bottom left in my drawing) is up and in relative to the other holes. This is visible in my drawing.

How bang-on were your holes? What diameter did you drill them?

Thanks for the posts

noot

I'm sure you do. I don't own a single metal-working tool. I know a few guys with welders and experience, and I started playing around with Solidworks in order to do this with no prior experience.

That said, we'll see how the end product turns out

alancamby

What worry's me about using 3/16'' on the winch mount is the absents of bends or reinforcement in your front plate. If the top (section with Noot on it) was bent back at a 90 degree angle it would give it a lot more streath. I am sure that a lot of winch plate manufactures use 3/16", but the design has bends and reinforcements. Just my opinion, I am in no way a engineer. You will probably be fine.

I can't remember what size I drilled my bumper holes
It has been a long time since I made my bumper. I know that I used 7/16"-14 bolts for the 8 holes. Mine has a 3/4" plate bolted to each frame horn faceplate. then the bumper bolts to the plate with a total of 4, 1/2"-13 bolts. Sounds heavy, but there is very little 3/4" plate in the design.
https://www.jk-forum.com/forums/jk-show-tell-33/homemade-front-bumper-119686/
I think your bumper is going to look great when it is finished.

noot

I just toyed around with "Beam Stress" equations. Using the elasticity of steel and a bunch of other "think I got it right" numbers, it looks like with 16000lbs of force, that front plate will deflect only 0.0005", which is like... nothing.

I think I'll risk using 3/16", I'll see what happens There isn't a lot of abrupt tugging action on a winch, so really the most force it'll see is the capacity of the winch... 8000lbs, and even that's pushing it. The shackle-mounts would see a lot more, but it looks like 3/16" is good enough for that too, as almost every aftermarket bumper is 3/16".

Worst case, I get to go Round 2 on front bumper design

I do appreciate the input.

Ice

looks really good!

leman

cant wait to see this done. my 8274 has been sitting in my shop waiting to go on the jeep

noot

My buddy and I have been working on it this past week. It's almost done... I'll wait till it's done to post everything up but here's a sneek peak: