So long story short , bought this jeep for the wife ,she's been wanting one for many years for a daily, I've wheeled about everything under the sun except a jeep , and when we took it wheelin I like how it handled, so I picked suspension, gears, lockers etc , wife picked bumpers and exterior stuff , the bumper isn't big name brand but I can promise you its strong ,I've winched alot of stuff alot heavier than the jeep , and lots of jeeps with the mud suction, nothing had moved ,bent or tweaked. She likes the mid width bumper but I wanna modify it for the winch to sit down between frame rails, cut out center , add winch plate and move fairlead to middle of bumper, between the lights , has anyone done this to a bumper b4 instead of just buying a new one , I dont see why it couldn't b done fairly easily just curious of what i might run into in the process, hopefully the pic post

 

Going to make what I think is an obvious assumption given the post......and that is you can weld and fabricate yourself because otherwise the project would make no sense vs. just buying something else. I've seen a few in the past that have done some cool things really sinking a winch down in a bumper. Think one of them actually flipped the winch upside down and you released the clutch from below IIRC. I bet if you google around you could find a few. I don't think you're going to run into anything wild doing this. Winch fitting between the frame rails is really the only clearance issue I can think of. Trying to mentally visualize while sitting in the office....don't think sway bar is coming into play as that sits right around the front-most body mount and I think back enough it's out of the way. Can't tell if your brake vacuum pump was relocated with that bumper but if not, that would be required.....and if the crash bar is still there between the frame rails you may or may not have to chop that off depending on how low you're thinking.

 

I cut out the center on a STOCK front bumper and mounted the winch plate between the frame rails and mounted the winch upside down - which positioned it in the center of the bumper. bolted a fairlead to the front of the bumper. I have used a few times with no noted exceptions, seems to work well. I see no reason why you could not do the same.

 

I know mine isn’t as low as you are probably thinking, but this little bumper has held up well, winch mount lower than many and wasn’t an expensive bumper.
hard for me to justify modifying one with the time and money spent when there are many options available

 

This is the quadratec bumper I have, no winch yet but the mounting plate is down into the frame rails.
I wish it was a little lower, but it's better than what I was hoping for.

 

Dat - another wire rope guy. Tip: keep the wire lubed to prevent rust and strand breakage. I just soak it with Fluid Film every 6 months.

 

that wire is 30 years old and still no snags or burrs, been on several different vehicles and always done well, Ramsey 9000, slow but steady, very reliable, oil the cable when I think about it, probably should more, but still doing well

 

Mounted finally!


I'm pretty happy with how low the winch sits.
That bumper cost me about $150, but I had to source all of the hardware (bolts and nuts) myself.

 

did you have to put extensions on the fog light wires? I wanted to keep my fog lights about where the factory was, but thought about that bumper too

 

I did need to extend the wires.
I didn't buy the extension since I had 0 plan to ever go back to the factory bumper.
I just cut the lead a few inches from the plug and added some new wire, but I also have some marine grade wire spools left over from re-wiring my boat.
So, I did the best I could to color match those wires...

Crimped, soldered, and then marine grade shrink tubing to seal it up (the kind with the built in glue).

the factory fogs fit in there just fine, but there wasn't any way to run the wires through the bumper as it's the modular model.
So, they sort of hang out there on the metal lip for now.

Overall, I love the bumper, it's thick, and well designed.
I looked at some cheaper models, and I was probably going to buy one of the EAG models before this one landed in my lap.

I don't know how they do the d-ring loops on the cheaper bumpers, but I saw an image on one of the reviews that showed the d-ring was tearing away from the bumper skin.

On this Quadratec the d-ring loop looks like it's a long piece that goes into the bumper, welded to the skin and connects directly to the frame of the jeep and is part of the main structure of the bumper.