Looking for advice about winch brackets. I bought a badland winch due to Black Friday deals. My dumb ass didn’t measure my bumper and I found out that the winch is about 1 inch to long because my bumper has a gully. Instead of returning it for something smaller what’s everyone opinion or thoughts if I made my own brackets to help the winch sit flat? Or don’t do this and buy a small winch that’s fits?
I was thinking about buying 1/4 thick steal for the brackets and stacking 3 or 4 on-top of each other then getting longer bolts…
Personally I’d get a winch that fits. The winch should sit flat on the plate. Theres a lot of forward roll torque on that in extreme pulls. I’d hate to see that elevated with brackets and have it rip off and become a missile and seriously injure someone. Also, whatever cheap chinese metric bolts they give you to bolt it down, throw them in the trash and buy 4- 10.9 grade or better of the same size to install it.
Briefly looking online, many of the modern winches are comparable in size. Some longer and some shorter (warn zeon). However, I’m not seeing anything under 21" width. Have you looked at the reviews for the bumper you have and can see what winch others have used?
I’ve been doing a lot of searching and noticed that there isn’t much. I did find one that is 20.9 inches, figures cross it fits. Also found I picture of the same bumper with a Warn Evo which is 21.02 inches. I’m wondering if they forced it to fit. The Badland one I bought is 23.2 inches so it why to big.
Also just noticed the bumper I have has been redesigned. I wonder if that’s why.
Look for Winch mount spacers. They are simply gap fillers made from high strength steel to planarize the wount holes to raise the winch body to avoid a well in the bumper.
Know that the higher the rise, the stronger the bolt needs to be to act both in shear and in tension (on back especially)
Be extra careful on heavy pulls or when using a snatch block to double force as you will be adding stress on the bolts.
consider using a Grade 5 mount bolt instead of Grade 8. While grade 8 is higher KPSI, the bending moment from the riser will cause that to fail suddenly. With grade 5, you will see deformation and stretch before failure.
Inspect those bolts after any heavy pulling and you can probably get away with adapting the bumper and spacers with no ill effect.
Unless you are doing heavy recovery, I don’t think this is a problem, but Brian is right in saying it is not as good as a direct mount solution. I think with care, you will be fine. I’d rather have an affordable winch mounted with adapters than no winch at all. If you have 5% discipline, I think this spacer at about 1" should be considered.
Mark where the interference is on the sides and cut it out so the winch sits down where it should. Won’t be much work. I can make short work of it with a plasma cutter if you live local
