ACE Expedition Front bumper - Fairlead issues?
 

Just curious if anyone else runs the new ACE Expedition series front bumper with the recessed winch mount? I ordered this right when they released them a few months back.

Once I got it on, I realized the winch sits far to low compared to the fairlead mounting holes. Unfortunatley, I noticed this while I was winching a 1946 John Deer farm tractor out of the bushes and it frayed the line while pulling over the back side of the mount area. :mad:

With a fully spooled winch, the rope comes out close to 1.5" below the fairlead and pulls over it at close to a 45 degree angle.

After emailing with AJ at ACE, he recommended purchasing their winch spacer to raise the winch up. He also noted it may need 2 sets stacked.

So I ordered 2 sets. Found the hardware did not work at all(not even for a single set, as the 2" bolts bottom out on the spool). So I found some washers and made it work so I could go play this weekend. Also had to take a grinder to the back side of the fairlead mount to put a proper fillet on it.

Pretty dissappointed in the design of this bumper so far. While it looks great and is quite beefy, the winch mounting is frustrating and doesnt seem like lot of thought was put into the location of the fairlead. Winch rope comes out of the bottom of the spool, why would you mount the fairlead so high up?!?! :thinking: