This morning I finished up installing my Warn Powerplant HD winch. I already had installed the Warn rock crawler front bumper with brush guard and the accompanying blocker beam skid plate. Mounting the bumper, guard and skid plate were pretty simple and had better instructions than the winch did. I am a little disappointed that I had to buy a winch mounting plate to mount a Warn Winch to a Warn Bumper. I guess that is just business. There are a couple of things that bother me and I'll address them as I remember them. First off is that a 12,500 pound winch is held to the bumper with only 4 small bolts and 4 nuts that slide into a slot on the legs. This seems a little scary, but my understanding of metallurgy is very limited, so maybe those bolts are strong enough to handle the task. There are no instructions saying to insert the 4 square nuts in the legs, so I am looking at this bag of nuts, bolts, flat and lock washers and thinking, "where does all this go." I didn't realize that the winch legs were not threaded until I had lined it all up and pushed the 1st bolt all the way to the hilt and met no threads to screw in to. When I backed up to take a second look, I realized that the square nuts go in the winch legs. The nuts are loose in their mounts, so it takes some experimenting to center them up on the bolts coming from below. There are no torque specifications that I could find, so I torqued them to 55 pounds. That required the use of a universal joint and extension to get to the front bolts, and a longer extension to reach the back bolts. Most of this took place through the cutouts for the factory fog lamps. If you go with this bumper, plan on adjusting the fog lamps several times to get them right. You need an allen wrench to do this, and you must dismount them from the bumper. There is nothing to let you know the lamps are in straight or anything. You have to mount the lamps in Warn's mounts, which is pretty simple. Plan on adjusting the beam up, or you won't be able to see the lights shining on the road. I adjusted the lamps up 2 full turns and that helped some, but they are still shining too close to the front to directly illuminate the road where I can see it. Have someone on hand when you go to tighten them down, otherwise you will end up with crosseyed fog lights. The rear of the winch plate is not flat. It has a 90 degree angle that extends all the way across it. I don't know what purpose it serves, but it gets in the way of the power wires. Maybe Warn could have left part of it off on the passenger side of the plate. The wires have to cross it at some point, either going over it or around it. This translates into the wires going over an edge. I am afraid that over time, the combination of chaffing over that edge and sunlight causing the insulation to break down, the hot wire will come in contact with the frame and a fire will result, since there is no safety mechanism in place such as a fuse. I am researching my options to better protect the power leads. Routing the leads to the battery was pretty simple. There were no suggestions from Warn, so I felt my way through it. I routed both wires around the end passenger of the winch plate and up into the tire well. I zip tied the wires to the support beam and ran them up the inside wall of the engine compartment. After several attempts, I found success in pulling the negative lead completely up and bending the wire to a 45 degree angle about 6 inches from the end and then feeding it back towards the driver's side between the airbox and the power steering reservoir. Once all the excess was pulled up and through, I routed it around the airbox and the computer box and then to the negative connection on the battery. I ran the hot lead up the same route from the wheel well, but this time, instead of going to the driver's side, I made the same 45 degree bend and ran it under the mount for the airbox, and then straight to the battery. This worked out pretty good, and eased my mind about the vibration/rubbing issue on the hot lead. I made a loop in the hot lead to take up the excess before connecting to the positive terminal. I may revisit the wire routing to see if I can clean it a little because I really don't like the way it looks between the winch and where the wires go under the front. Anyway it is complete and functional. I'll let you know of any changes, and am open to any suggestions for improvement, as this is my first time doing anything like this.

russ

 

Holy crap.... That is HUGE!

I am wondering about the air flow myself.

 

Hey Benmar2000,

Glad to see a fellow South Carolinian on the board. I played out most of the winch line and pulled the Jeep up a slight hill as the instructions advised, but didn't try the compressor, other than turning it on. I went with the HD because of higher capacity and lower current draw than the HP model and the price was the same. Got a great deal on the winch. This guy was selling them out of the back of his truck at the grocery store...not really...pm me for details if interested...

Airflow doesn't seem to be a problem. I didn't notice the radiator fans operating more than normal, but it hasn't really been that hot since I bought it in early December, so that may not be a valid comparison.

As far as a trail ride, I am interested, but I'll have to check my job schedule. I followed Rubidozer to Tellico last Saturday. It was fun for the family. He pretty much held my hand while on the trail and helped me not to break my new Jeep since I am a novice at this.

 

Has all that weight affect the front suspension? Did you do anything to the front suspension?

 

I didn't do anything to the suspension, and the extra weight on the front may have made the ride a tad smoother.