Wanted to show off my newly finished winch plate for my truck. Made it almost exactly like my old bronco plate, though I did have to take a sawzall to quite a bit of the bumper.

 

Looks pretty cool.

Mounted to the frame where the tow hooks were? How many bolts, and size? Weld it too?

 

There are already holes in the frame horns, so I welded 2 L brackets to the winch plate and drilled a hole thru it and bolted it through there with (I believe the biggest that would fit without drilling the frame holes bigger) 5/8" bolts. I also welded the very front of the plate to the frame, but only enough to where it could easily be cut off later if wanted. On my bronco I only had 3/4" bolts holding it on and it held up perfectly so I don't see any problem with this setup.

For some reason when I got the truck it only had the passenger side tow hook, but It wash't necessary to move it at all. It stayed on through the whole installation so that's no problem. I also welded some brackets from the plate to the brush guard and did away with the terribly wimpy brackets the brush guard was held on with before. I was afraid to stand on it before and it moved around, now it is very sturdy and I just changed the thermostat by standing on it, and actually used the brush guard as a tow point the other day and held nicely.

 

That's pretty cool, very nice work.

 

Thanks man! Next up I plan on some 16x10 or 17x9 cepeks like yours with some 35" duratracs probably. Then a 3" BL and probably 4.56 gears. Do you know if there's a write up on front and rear gear installs? I want to do them myself.

 

check the sticky threads might be one in there about gears. Setup is gonna be pretty sweet where your all done.

 

Looks great dude. Just curious what winch did you go with and how do you like it? I've been wanting to pick one up for myself. Also just to warn you, the body lift will raise your bumper up 3'' making your brush guard off a little bit and exposing your winch a little more. You could probably just cut your brush guard off and re weld it up higher if you wanted to though. Just a heads up.

 

I went with an Engo winch. What sold me on it was the price and in one of the magazine shoot outs it beat the warn in the individual tests, though it didn't get 1st place because warn pays the magazine. I believe it's "Four wheel magazine" or something like that if you'd like to look it up. I've had mine over a year now and used it 5-6 times already and hasn't failed me yet. It did fade a little bit from being out in the open on my bronco, but it shouldn't get any worse now that it's behind the bumper on the f150. But mechanically, it still works every time I use it. Got a 10k lb winch with synthetic rope for around $425. You can get the cable version for around $100 less I believe.

And yes I've already thought about having to re weld the brush guard further up. I may even move the winch to the top of the frame rails if the extra 3" gives enough room for it.

 

How do you access the winch? Looks like you have to crawl under the truck to plug in the controller or to turn the *** to release the cable.

 

Thanks for the info man. I've been reading a lot about those winches and it sounds like their good quality for a good price. Sounds like you've already got the body lift idea thought out. So I say go for it.