Winch Woes

[Yardstick]

I got lots of advice telling me it would be a good idea to have a winch on the front of my JLURD, so I bought one! Figuring that I'd be a fairly light user and that the HF Badlands Apex (or is it Apex Badlands?) winch has a decent reputation by now I thought I'd go for that one. I also had to find a bumper and winch plate. After lots of searching I finally decided to just go with the OEM stuff to replace the factory plastic. Well... chalk this one up to a learning experience - the winch doesn't fit! The brackets from the front of the winch plate to the front frame horns are too far back and interfere with the winch motor and gearbox housings on each side and the cables are pressing hard into the grille. I may have another good use for this winch and now that I've scratched the crap out of it I might as well keep it. I suppose there are two solutions here: a different winch plate that works with the factory steel bumper OR a different winch. So what's the best winch that will fit in that Mopar winch plate?

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[Yardstick]

The HF Apex Badland winch just fits in the Mopar winch plate without the control box mounted. There's more clearance than I can measure with a feeler gauge, but not much! I'm not sure if it's going to be possible to install and tighten the inner bumper nuts. It looks like other winch plates might give more space and that would be the less expensive option. This whole project is feeling like a waste of time, effort and money. What would I ever winch to in the desert anyway?

This might be 3/32" clearance.

Again, maybe 3/32" clerance.

This is maybe 1/16" clearance (being generous).

 

[Yardstick]

I'm back to this ordeal project but now with a Grimm winch plate.

The Grimm plate sure makes it a lot easier to get the bumper on and off. I'm not so confident in those bumper nuts anymore. Their locking ability is almost completely gone now.

And of course, now there's a new problem. It doesn't seem right that the Grimm winch plate makes hard contact with this rubber isolator for the Rubicon's sway bar. Should I grind/cut an area for clearance or just leave it?

I did a test fit of the winch. It's not completely bolted down yet but it seems to fit better. It will still require drilling a hole in the side of the control box to re-route the positive wire. I'm surprised at how challenging this install has been. I was really expecting a pretty straightforward bolt-on install.

 

[JeepViking13]

For some reason I saw this and thought it said Wench Hoes. ?

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