lightsout
Well-Known Member
That winch mounting would be the exception and not the rule as so most winch plates mount to the inside of the frame and horn, where as the thickness of the Roadmaster Baseplate plevents most winch plates from fitting between the frames, the Warn winchplate is a great example and requires an outside mount baseplate.This is incorrect - Roadmaster base plate, recessed Aztec winch mount and Zeon 10s winch.
Roadmaster sells two styles of base plates - direct connect and crossbar style. The 521456-5 base plate I installed is a direct connect and a crossbar is not required.
Now if it was this style of Roadmaster I would definitely use a crossbar.
I just upgrade from a plastic bumper to the OEM bumper and had to replace the old Roadmaster base plate. The old baseplate is three years old and has over 30K miles of towing on it. Looks brand new, no damage to Jeep and no crossbar required.
I do agree that the Jeep has very thin frame horns and anything bolted to this area for towing or recover should be inspected frequently.
I too am not trying to persuade anyone either way. Just sharing what I did when I looked at cost and what I felt was the safest way to tow the Jeep along with adding a winch to it.
That particular baseplate you have is similar to the Blue Ox/Curt baseplate that most offroaders do not want due to the longer protuding towbar adapter connectors as well as that cross bar being so low out in front (that cross bar on my previous Blue Ox is where the welds broke). You can also use the Blue Ox Baseplate then you can use any winch plate and achieve the same thing. The big draw to the Maximus 3 and the other Roadmaster RM-521453-5 (which is the actual comparison being discussed here) which are both minimalist base plates with the least exposure and far more rock and off road friendly then the blue ox/curt style Roadmaster uses for winch mounting. It is a solid munted base plate though which certainly makes it better then the Blue Ox.
Sponsored