Newb with winch bumper question

F

frow

New member
Hi All. First of you guys and gals are great. Thank you for being a resource. I just bought a used 2014 Jeep Rubicon Unlimited. It came with with stock plastic front and rear bumpers. I would like to add a winch. Any recommendations? Do I need to replace the bumpers? Should I replace the bumpers? If so, any recommendations on what I can add without having to at a lift and/or springs. I have heard the weight can make the front end sag. As always thank you.
 
frow said:
Hi All. First of you guys and gals are great. Thank you for being a resource. I just bought a used 2014 Jeep Rubicon Unlimited. It came with with stock plastic front and rear bumpers. I would like to add a winch. Any recommendations? Do I need to replace the bumpers? Should I replace the bumpers? If so, any recommendations on what I can add without having to at a lift and/or springs. I have heard the weight can make the front end sag. As always thank you.
Click to expand...

This is going to depend on what you want to do.

First off, if you plan on getting a winch, you will likely want to get a whole new front bumper. While it's possible to rig a winch to the stock front bumper with some modifications, it will still be a plastic bumper and if you plan on wheeling it you'll want steel. That said, if you just want it for simple recovery and don't really plan on doing much rock crawling, maybe that's the way you'd like to go.

Warn makes the best winches, nobody disputes that, and many here will tell you not to skimp on that with a cheaper brand. There are other brands though, like Mile Marker, I personally have a Smittybuilt that I got as part of a package deal on Craigslist and it works fine for me.

Knowing what kind of wheeling you plan on doing would help with suggestions on bumpers.


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frow said:
Hi All. First of you guys and gals are great. Thank you for being a resource. I just bought a used 2014 Jeep Rubicon Unlimited. It came with with stock plastic front and rear bumpers. I would like to add a winch. Any recommendations? Do I need to replace the bumpers? Should I replace the bumpers? If so, any recommendations on what I can add without having to at a lift and/or springs. I have heard the weight can make the front end sag. As always thank you.
Click to expand...

A winch and replacement bumper will weigh enough to cause your front end to droop a bit. This is no big deal and nothing a pair of 1" coil spacers can't fix and for cheap. If you're on a budget, there's nothing wrong with running your factory bumper with a winch plate but I would recommend that you hack the ends off and make it into a stubby like you see in the write-up below:

https://wayalife.com/showthread.php/8646-Jeep-JK-Wrangler-Homemade-Stubby-Front-Bumper-Write-Up

If you want a more finished look, there are companies that sell end caps for that.

As far as winches go, I would have to agree with USMC Wrangler and say that this is something you really should NOT cheap out on. It is after all, a piece of safety equipment. You can get a nice WARN M8000 made in your home state for about the same cost as a China winch and really, it'll be all that you need and it'll will WORK when you need it to.
 
Congratulations on the Jeep! Like others have mentioned I'd go with a warn winch as well. I've ran a couple and the less expensive (not warn) winch I ran would overheat when I needed it to work.

You will likely end up wanting a stubby front bumper particularly if you are not going to be lifting the jeep. The stock bumper will get beat up on the ends by rocks. There are a ton of options out there or you can cut the ends of your stock front bumper. Good luck and have fun!


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frow said:
Hi All. First of you guys and gals are great. Thank you for being a resource. I just bought a used 2014 Jeep Rubicon Unlimited. It came with with stock plastic front and rear bumpers. I would like to add a winch. Any recommendations? Do I need to replace the bumpers? Should I replace the bumpers? If so, any recommendations on what I can add without having to at a lift and/or springs. I have heard the weight can make the front end sag. As always thank you.
Click to expand...

Like others have mentioned, you have to determine what your needs are. If your intentions are to get out and play on the rocks, then a steel bumper and leveling kit are recommended. If your trips are more along the lines of exploring fire/forest roads and such, then you can simply add a winch plate to your stock bumper.

Assuming that the later is more true, Rock Hard 4x4 makes a plate that mounts on top of a stock JK bumper (WJCO provided you a link). You won’t need to add anything to the front suspension to offset the additional weight which will be only about 100 pounds.

If you’re more creative you can mount a winch inside (like Mantisjk1 shows) or completely hidden in your stock JK bumper like this:

View attachment 282911

Both methods use a modified or custom made mounting plate, possible need to relocate the vacuum pump and cutting of the plastic cover and metal bumper plate.

Having done this, I will say that it’s quite a bit of work, but I love the end result and it fits my needs perfectly. Here’s a link if you care to see more:

https://wayalife.com/showpost.php?p=836148
 
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