Installed a winch over the last few weeks but just now getting around to writing up the blog about it.
My buddy and I ended up reusing the stock bumper but we cut it down and made some modifications to make everything fit to give more of a stock look.
The first step was removing the bumper, supports, etc. You basically just need some wrenches or sockets to do this but we used an air impact wrench.
For my install, I removed the frame horns because I installed a piece of plate steel to go between the frame rails. Part of that was for strength and another part of that was the winch plate that I bought from Harbor Freight wasn't wide enough to go rail to rail.
In the photo above you can see the plate (which was painted black) and the winch plate sitting on top of it. The key thing is that you have a strong connection to the frame and a strong mounting point for the winch. There are 4 bolts holding the plate to the frame and 4 bolts holding the winch to the plate. Because I wanted my setup to be recessed I had to take the control box off and lay it to the side.
For the bumper we used a considerable number (probably a dozen) cutting wheels and cut the bumper down and angled the edges to give more of an aggressive look. You'll notice most vehicles built for actual off road use have higher bumpers and/or don't fully extend the width of the vehicle. Search Google images for 'off road vehicle' if you don't believe me! This is to make sure your tire (not your bumper) can contact obstacles and you have drive over them. For this reason, we cut the stock bumper to clear the tires and then did some cosmetic things to make it look better. It was all freehand with the cutting wheel with a few markings to give a basic path to follow.
We also cut a hole for the fair lead to go through. For a template we just measured and drilled some holes at the corners and drew a line to follow.
Be sure to take a rasp and smooth the edges too because sides will be sharp and you don't want to cut yourself!
To re-attach the bumper and ensure we had enough room to reach in and access the in/out lever on the winch an plug in the remote the modded bumper had to be attached differently. The solution we used was to cut the bumper mounts down to match the new width of the bumper and then use longer bolts and about 2 dozen (give or take) washers to space the bumper forward.
After all that we also decided to go back and weld the steel plate to the frame just to make sure everything was secure and to make it a little more difficult to steal. You may want to tack weld a bolt holding your winch on too for this reason in case the bolts are readily accessible so someone doesn't undo a few bolts and run off with your winch!
