Well, as some of you may remember I bought a winch for my truck back in november, and only recently did I actually get it installed.

For a bit of background, when I was considering a winch I didn't want something sticking way out in front on a front mount, and given my truck was otherwise stock, I couldnt mount it to the bumper in any way.

My solution was to mount it inside the bumper. I had seen these kits: http://www.warn.com/truck/mounting-s...iddenkit.shtml but with a $250 price tag, it was a little more than I wanted to spend. Instead I got the Harbor freight universal plate (http://www.harborfreight.com/univers...unt-90476.html) to use as a starting point. Looking at it, it is very good, heavy steel, and given I wanted to bolt it to where the tow hooks go, putting the winch between the frame rails, it needed a little tweaking. After taking an angle grinder to the "wings" on both sides it was ready to go.

After getting the winch plate all set it was just a matter of bolting the winch to the plate (I used a harbor freight 9,000lbs winch) and getting it up into the bumper. In order to take care of that I removed the rubber cover that goes between the bumper and radiator support, and removed the tow hooks. I decided to replace the bolts with longer ones and I went up to 10.9 grade over the factory 8.8. Its worth bearing in mind that these are metric 12mm bolts, and are not the 1/2" bolts they look like.

Another note, if anyone is looking to do this, dispite a set of holes on the winch plate looking like they would line up pefectly, they dont, they're off by about 1/2" width wise. I just drilled a new set on the one side and had no other problems with it.

Here are the pics. The fairlead fits nicely behind the licence plate, and with only a little bit of cutting of the valance, it was all set. The remote connection and clutch can be reached easily through the holes on either side of the licence plate, and with the plate down, you wouldn't know it was there (Other than for the cable coming out)





Costs:
Winch - $280
Warrenty - $40
Winch Plate - $40
Bolts - $16
Drill Bits - $12

Total - $388 (Could be $320 if you didn't buy the warrenty and had the drill bits)

 

cool great job

 

Looks good, and since Warn doesn't make them anymore for our trucks that's a good option to have.

 

Got any pics of the mounting plate? I would like to do this on my next truck.

 

I can go out and snap some of it in place, but I dont have any from when it was off the truck. So far it has been very useful, just last night it was used to help pull out an ambulance.

 

Have a full front pic. Interested to see from a distance

 

Also, is you truck lifted? I am putting a 3" body light on mine. Might give some more working room.

 

maybe you can find a way to use this instead of the zipties. it flips up your license plate with a switch.
http://www.4wheelparts.com/Exterior-...S%2fS950-61100

 

I Don't have one at the moment, but I'll do my best to get one tomarrow.

Nope, completely stock in that regard, not even a crank. It does however have 32" tires if that matters.

Looks cool, I'm just planning on fabbing up a bracket with a hinge that holds itself up. The zipties certainly aren't the final solution.

 

Awesome thanks. I'm gonna go probably the same route, just worried about how hard it is to het to controls