Building A Custom Winch Bumper

To begin the build, it works well to start with a mental picture. Next, the existing bumper was removed, making it possible to stand back and see how the mental picture might meld with reality. The winch bumper needs to be strong: stronger than a bumper primarily designed to deflect a front-end hit. The next consideration is the winch’s ultimate location. Too high and it could block airflow to the radiator. Too low and approach angle could suffer.

Here’s one of two stock bumper attachment points. It’s a plate that’s stitch-welded onto the end of the frame rail. It’s no more than 1/8-inch thick and looks like it might bend forward under a heavy winch pull.

The new winch bumper will attach across the front of the frame rails, but will be welded on. The mounting face needed to be spaced a bit further forward so that the winch would better clear an A/C line. To that end, a set of 1/4-inch-thick plates was cut out. Welded together, they’ll add up to a half-inch of extra clearance.

The spacer plates were welded together on the bench: much easier compared to welding them together on the vehicle. The hole in the center lets the plates connect in the middle instead of only around their perimeter.

Our major bumper components are laid out, ready for the next step. The central structure is a two-inch by four-inch rectangular tube with 1/4-inch-thick walls. That’s thick! The main tube will weld to the frame, and then the winch mount and the rest of the bumper’s tubing will then bolt to it.

To make the winch mount and the tube mounts bolt on, plates with welded-on nuts will be welded to the main structure. These square nuts are made specifically for weld-on applications and are designed to maximize welding area for superior strength.

Here’s the plate that will bolt to the welded-on plate.

Four plates with four holes each equals 16 holes to bore into quarter-inch tubing. Not fun, but still necessary.

Holes bored, plates ready. Additional nut plates are ready to weld to the ends and the top face of the main structural tube.

The end plates will serve as mounting points for part of the bumper’s tubing.

The two plates along the top will form part of the winch mount (you’ll see) and will make it so that the winch is mounted both in tension and in shear. These are the shear mounts.

Time to backtrack. It turned out that the nut plates weren’t big enough to overlap the holes. It was possible to weld the gap shut, but this situation still created a weak spot right where strength was needed the most. New nut plates were in order.