Grimm Offroad has got the winch plate for you!

[AtlasRearden]

We were the first to install that kit when they first came out and have learned a lot since that first install.

Fair enough--the video is still helpful in places. It's just important to pay attention to Grimm's installation guide.

The amount of trimming really depends on the Jeep. Most only require a little, like we showed in the video and that is for the brackets to just clear the winch perfectly. Every now and then we'll see one that need more trimming. We've also started trimming more of the bracket out than shown in the video, just to give a little more room.

Here's where I ended up on trimming. I hope I didn't go so far that there's so little metal left that it doesn't do any good. I even ended up taking the grinder to my brand new $2,000 winch to make it fit. It seemed like that portion of the winch housing was decorative, so it gave me just a tad more clearance to make it fit. It still touches the brackets, but at least I got the winch to slide forward enough to mount it through the holes in the winch place.

The angle of the pictures are a little misleading, since it makes it look like the bottom holes in the bumper brackets are well under the winch--they are not.

For the bolts, you must be talking about the lower two bolts through the side? When we installed it, they hadn't started adding the two longer side bolts into the kit yet, so we reused the OE bolts.

It actually came with 6 bolts, so all three bolts on both sides of the winch plate seem to get replaced.

Yes, it is tight on the inner bolts, but you can get to them. The top inner two nuts can be reached with a 6" extension from the top of the bumper. For the two lower inner nuts, you need to leave the winch mounting bolts slightly loose until after you tighten the front bolts. Those need to be reached with a long extension from underneath.

I reach out to Grimm, and their only advice was to leave the winch mounting bolts loose, so I guess I will try to loosen them and then try again. But currently, it doesn't matter what kind of extension or wobbly is used, since the socket itself won't even fit onto the nut with the winch there. I can start the nuts by hand on 3 of the four bumper studs, but the socket won't fit. But the flange nut on the top right side won't even start--the flange runs into the winch. So I guess the only way is to loosen it enough that you can kind of shift the winch from side to side to tighten the nuts. I'm a little bit skeptical it will even shift far enough from side to side, but I guess it's worth a try.[/QUOTE]

We somehow placed our winch perfectly and though it was tight, we were able to get to both lower nuts with a thin wall socket and a wobbly.

Perhaps I will need to buy a thin wall socket to try instead of my standard deep well socket. Although, the winch is going to have to shift by more distance than the thickness of my socket wall in order to fit the flanged nuts on both sides.

Thanks for the feedback.

Something else that might help others--I opted for the 1.5" Factor 55 fairlead. Using this fairlead, the 40mm mounting bolts provided by Grimm are not long enough to engage the nylon in the locknuts on the opposite side. I found some similar stainless button head bolts on Amazon that are 50mm and hoping that those work.

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[Tech Tim]

Fair enough--the video is still helpful in places. It's just important to pay attention to Grimm's installation guide.

There were no instructions when we installed ours...

Here's where I ended up on trimming. I hope I didn't go so far that there's so little metal left that it doesn't do any good. I even ended up taking the grinder to my brand new $2,000 winch to make it fit. It seemed like that portion of the winch housing was decorative, so it gave me just a tad more clearance to make it fit. It still touches the brackets, but at least I got the winch to slide forward enough to mount it through the holes in the winch place.

The angle of the pictures are a little misleading, since it makes it look like the bottom holes in the bumper brackets are well under the winch--they are not.

That's about the same we trimmed. Now days we take quite a bit more out.

There is a lot of meat there, you're not going to weaken the mount by taking more out. Some bumper installations require cutting all the way to the mounting holes in the flange.

I reach out to Grimm, and their only advice was to leave the winch mounting bolts loose, so I guess I will try to loosen them and then try again. But currently, it doesn't matter what kind of extension or wobbly is used, since the socket itself won't even fit onto the nut with the winch there. I can start the nuts by hand on 3 of the four bumper studs, but the socket won't fit. But the flange nut on the top right side won't even start--the flange runs into the winch. So I guess the only want is to loosen it enough that you can kind of shift the winch from side to side to tighten the nuts. I'm a little bit skeptical it will even shift far enough from side to side, but I guess it's worth a try.

Perhaps I will need to buy a thin wall socket to try instead of my standard deep well socket. Although, the winch is going to have to shift by more distance than the thickness of my socket wall in order to fit the flanged nuts on both sides.

Yes, loosening the winch and sliding it left and right as you go will get you to those nuts.

Thin wall socket is a must.

 

[AtlasRearden]

Well, the 50mm stainless button head bolts were a perfect length, and the ones I got were identical to the ones supplied by Grimm in other respects. Unfortunately, I tried to torque them to 40 ft./lbs. per Grimm's installation instructions, and the hex head bolts were not able to withstand that torque and started to strip. So these may now be permanently installed on my rig without a lot of hassle getting them out again. In retrospect, it might have been better to try to find a star drive head that could withstand more torque--but that's what Grimm supplied, so that's what I went with.

Regarding the strategy of loosening the bolts in the winch to get to the bumper nuts, how is one supposed to then properly torque the winch? Warn calls for 35 ft./lbs., but once the bumper is on, the two forward-most bolts are inaccessible with a torque wrench.

Is this (Stanley Proto J7018MHT 3/8" Drive Thin Wall Deep Impact Socket, 18mm, 6 Point) a good 18mm thin wall socket to use on the bumper nuts? The pic doesn't seem thinner than my socket, but that's the only one I could find in 18mm.

 

[Tech Tim]

Regarding the strategy of loosening the bolts in the winch to get to the bumper nuts, how is one supposed to then properly torque the winch? Warn calls for 35 ft./lbs., but once the bumper is on, the two forward-most bolts are inaccessible with a torque wrench.

Torque the rear ones first with a torque wrench and get the feel of how much that 35ftlbs is.
Then reach in with whatever you have and replicate that by feel.

Is this (Stanley Proto J7018MHT 3/8" Drive Thin Wall Deep Impact Socket, 18mm, 6 Point) a good 18mm thin wall socket to use on the bumper nuts? The pic doesn't seem thinner than my socket, but that's the only one I could find in 18mm.

My 18mm socket is a Husky from Home Depot and measures .930" OD.

 

[Fullfree]

Fair enough--the video is still helpful in places. It's just important to pay attention to Grimm's installation guide.


Here's where I ended up on trimming. I hope I didn't go so far that there's so little metal left that it doesn't do any good. I even ended up taking the grinder to my brand new $2,000 winch to make it fit. It seemed like that portion of the winch housing was decorative, so it gave me just a tad more clearance to make it fit. It still touches the brackets, but at least I got the winch to slide forward enough to mount it through the holes in the winch place.

The angle of the pictures are a little misleading, since it makes it look like the bottom holes in the bumper brackets are well under the winch--they are not.


It actually came with 6 bolts, so all three bolts on both sides of the winch plate seem to get replaced.


I reach out to Grimm, and their only advice was to leave the winch mounting bolts loose, so I guess I will try to loosen them and then try again. But currently, it doesn't matter what kind of extension or wobbly is used, since the socket itself won't even fit onto the nut with the winch there. I can start the nuts by hand on 3 of the four bumper studs, but the socket won't fit. But the flange nut on the top right side won't even start--the flange runs into the winch. So I guess the only way is to loosen it enough that you can kind of shift the winch from side to side to tighten the nuts. I'm a little bit skeptical it will even shift far enough from side to side, but I guess it's worth a try.

Perhaps I will need to buy a thin wall socket to try instead of my standard deep well socket. Although, the winch is going to have to shift by more distance than the thickness of my socket wall in order to fit the flanged nuts on both sides.

Thanks for the feedback.

Something else that might help others--I opted for the 1.5" Factor 55 fairlead. Using this fairlead, the 40mm mounting bolts provided by Grimm are not long enough to engage the nylon in the locknuts on the opposite side. I found some similar stainless button head bolts on Amazon that are 50mm and hoping that those work.
[/QUOTE]
Hi AtlasRearden:
Thanks for the super nice review, moreover I have a question, do you know why in the pictures from the manufacturer website they don’t cut nothing and in your case you needed? I want to install the warn zeon 12s platinum.
Again many thanks.

 

[rcadden]

@Grimm OffRoad @Northridge4x4 both of you show this plate as backordered/out of stock. Any ideas on when they should be back in stock?

Picking my Badlands winch up today, but would rather not be stuck waiting 2 months+ for the plate to install it....

 

[MarkyMark]

Hi team, I installed mine ~2 years ago. It didn't come with additional hardware so I used the OEM. It was a while back, but honestly I didn't have any issues with it at all. I thought I was going to have to do some grinding but really didn't have to. (I smoothed out one side just to make myself feel like I'd done something. . . ) Also, didn't have any real issue with getting a rachet on. I wasn't able to get my torque on the rear bolts - so just tightened them as much as I could. I put a Smittybilt winch on it and it fit perfect. I did the "stealth install" (you can read elsewhere in the form on that) and I love it. Would highly recomend the Grimm plate as I've had zero issues.

 

[Northridge4x4]

If you order today we will have these shipped out in 5-7 days they are on the way to us already

 

[Northridge4x4]

@Grimm OffRoad @Northridge4x4 both of you show this plate as backordered/out of stock. Any ideas on when they should be back in stock?

Picking my Badlands winch up today, but would rather not be stuck waiting 2 months+ for the plate to install it....

Just got off the phone with Grimm, they said they just shipped some to our KY warehouse. They should be received in the next day or two, though the holiday weekend might drag that out a bit.

I would recommend getting your order in as soon as you can, these things move really fast when we get them.

 

[rcadden]

Just got off the phone with Grimm, they said they just shipped some to our KY warehouse. They should be received in the next day or two, though the holiday weekend might drag that out a bit.

I would recommend getting your order in as soon as you can, these things move really fast when we get them.

Just placed - thanks for the quick response!

 

[Dodgeman70592]

Received a Badlands for Christmas from my wife. I have read elsewhere that those winches when mounted to Warn and Maximus-3 winch plates require spacer plates to raise the winch up a bit otherwise the winch lever hits the stock Rubicon bumper. Does this plate sit any taller than it's competitors, or should I go ahead and order spacers for this plate as well? I will be ordering a Grimm plate today.

 

[Northridge4x4]

Received a Badlands for Christmas from my wife. I have read elsewhere that those winches when mounted to Warn and Maximus-3 winch plates require spacer plates to raise the winch up a bit otherwise the winch lever hits the stock Rubicon bumper. Does this plate sit any taller than it's competitors, or should I go ahead and order spacers for this plate as well? I will be ordering a Grimm plate today.

No need for a spacer with a Warn winch on a Grimm winch plate.

Sorry, we don't know if the badlands winch would need one.

 

[Malifestro]

Received a Badlands for Christmas from my wife. I have read elsewhere that those winches when mounted to Warn and Maximus-3 winch plates require spacer plates to raise the winch up a bit otherwise the winch lever hits the stock Rubicon bumper. Does this plate sit any taller than it's competitors, or should I go ahead and order spacers for this plate as well? I will be ordering a Grimm plate today.

Same. If you end up getting this plate and do the install, report back in here how it went. Thanks!

 

[Dodgeman70592]

Same. If you end up getting this plate and do the install, report back in here how it went. Thanks!

install went well, plate is beefy. Winch did not require plate spacers. In fact I ordered the winch plate spacers and tried them out and the top of the winch would hit the bumper. I will say, it’s tight. There is around an 1/8 or so from the front of the winch to the bumper, I had to use the bumper spacer plates that Grimm provided in their kit. This pushe the bumper out about 3/16 which was needed otherwise bumper wouldn’t seat properly without hitting winch. Also, I’m on the fence about the battery cable being so tight against the grill. Might relocate it, time will tell.

 

[rcadden]

install went well, plate is beefy. Winch did not require plate spacers. In fact I ordered the winch plate spacers and tried them out and the top of the winch would hit the bumper. I will say, it’s tight. There is around an 1/8 or so from the front of the winch to the bumper, I had to use the bumper spacer plates that Grimm provided in their kit. This pushe the bumper out about 3/16 which was needed otherwise bumper wouldn’t seat properly without hitting winch. Also, I’m on the fence about the battery cable being so tight against the grill. Might relocate it, time will tell.

Not Grimm-related, but I'm installing as soon as my plate ships. Did you end up doing the power interrupt, or nah? Most of the YouTube Badlands install videos seem to skip it.

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