Just got this Jk a few weeks ago. Want to put a winch on it. I am under the impression that it is "winch ready" with the steel bumper. I got a 13k lbs winch and a winch plate and have been trying to get it sorted. Seems like I'll have to cut a bit of the steel bumper front lip to accommodate the fairlead... But want to verify! Read someone thought the winch should be bolted to the bumper itself, but that seems like a bad idea. Any insight would be appreciated!



Mock up...

Plate cut, ground, and painted.

With bumper back on, the winch line will be going thru a much narrower slot than I'd like...

 

Noop, I believe you should have that winch plate bolted to the underside of the frame rails, which will recess the winch down in the bumper and align the fairlead with the intended opening in the front of the bumper (where it says "rubicon").

I'm not sure what plate you have there, but look through a couple vids or cruise through Rubitrux website. This is what the end result should be like -

 

Man, just looking at that website made my wallet run for cover.... lol.

Thanks for the response. I was going to try and mount it lower, but then noticed I would need to relocate some other items that live under there. I will probably leave it like this for now (and save up some $$$ for the correct parts). I just know I didn't want to cut into that steel bumper!

Being 100% transparent, I don't think I will be using this winch as much as it should be. I think its 50% looks and 50% piece of mind for our Colorado snow storms.

Thanks again, really appreciate it!

 

Even if you just use it once, you’re not going to want to use it going through the fairlead like that, right now it is just 100% looks. If you’re planning on using it for anything I would look into remounting
you’ll eat up that winch line quick

 

Got it. Dang... Lol
So other than the narrow fairlead, if I was going to keep it here (and trim the steel bumper a bit) is there any reason this setup wouldn't work? I was going to just cut out a notch the length of the fairlead that came with the winch.

Heading down to garage now to see if under the frame rails is an option at all with my current plate.

Thank you!!

 

I'd say the real solution here is simply relocate that brake vacuum which is pretty cheap and simple. There are various brackets and locations to relocate that and it should be the only thing interfering I believe. This is a popular mod and there should be a lot of vids on YouTube covering it. I'm pretty sure the plate you have should work fine and allow you to mount it on the underside, though if that was not the intent you might have to modify it a touch or cut some of it. NBD really. I agree with the above though.....it's not safe for functional use as it is, and I also wouldn't cut that bumper. It would look bad, not really increase function, and kill any resale value should you ever go to something else.

 

Even if you don’t buy a relocation bracket, one is easy to make if you’re handy with metal and have a little scrap iron around, not worth buying any to make one since they are probably cheaper to buy than buying the metal to make it, but it is simple to relocate with a home made or store bought bracket