Mounting winch bumper on a Maverick

[elgin]

Right off, let me address the obvious question: "why would you put a winch on a hybrid? "
...because it will get stuck off road more than a 4wd ecobost. 98% of my driving is on pavement ,so I bought a hybrid ,but I have modified to go off pavement. I found a mid-90's Jeep bumper on e-bay for around $130 to modify to fit the Mav.
I was asked to show pictures of the build, so here they are:

The whole front facia needs to be removed. Once removed, you will see that the body painted bumper / grill surround are a separate piece from the black plastic "diaper " (I hate plastic cars) . These two pieces easily separate by pulling the metal tabs attaching them together. Save this diaper and tabs for reinstall if you loose your nerve, or come to you senses and want to return it to stock.

Right below these two bolts attaching this bar across the bottom of the front are the 1" stamped holes used to tie down your Mav when it was shipped from Mexico. These two tie-down holes will be the primary bumper attachment points.

A 1" bolt is welded to a piece of angle so that it will tightly fill the shipping tie-down hole. A piece of flat square stock with a slot cut into it to accommodate the "fin" at the top of this crossmember is welded to the angle iron so that the crossmember is sandwiched between.

This shipping hole sandwich is repeated on the the side. From here you stack the necessary brackets to hold the bumper. These are made from 4" channel or 4" sq tubing.
The channel bolts to holes hanging from the bottom of the steel stock bumper (nothing was originally attached there - how lucky was that.)
The 4" sq tubing is either bolted or welded to the slanted body piece directly behind (I was lazy and threw a welded on it)

This top piece of channel is the attachment point for the upper portion of the bumper you can see the exposed bolt in picture of mounted bumper. Also the 2" angle iron showing in previous picture has two holes drilled to match up with two holes in new bumper lower section.

Mock up cardboard pieces to blend in Jeep bumper to opening. Cut these out of 16 ga scrap. A small black-chrome bolt attaches to flange at bottom of facia opening.

WARNING: THIS PROJECT WILL REQUIRE FABRICATION SKILLS. THE ABOVE IS NOT A STEP BY STEP INSTRUCTION. BUT JUST SOME TIPS TO SHOW THAT IT CAN BE DONE.

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[Nightowl]

Wow! Amazing work!

 

[Houndmav]

Those welds scare me.

 

[Hot Runr Guy]

Great write-up, thank you!

Can I ask, is there a nut on this 1" bolt, or is it just being used as a locating pin?

HRG

 

[elgin]

Those welds scare me.

Yep, the scary welds are mine. I tacked things together with my stick welder, which I hadn't used in 20 years...then I took it over to a neighbor where he mig welded everything both sides.

 

[elgin]

Great write-up, thank you!

Can I ask, is there a nut on this 1" bolt, or is it just being used as a locating pin?

HRG

No nut, the bolt sticks through a 1" hole drilled in the bottom plate - welded in place where it pokes into the transport hold down hole in crossmember. Grind the threads down and the bolt is tight in hole - takes up thrust forces 360 degrees, you can push or pull bumper with no strain on rest of chassis.

 

[elgin]

HERE'S PART TWO: FINISHING IT UP

When mounted on a Jeep the bumper is straight across. This picture shows the pieces added to flare the bumper. Notice the "ropey" used to blend in with the welds on the $100 e-bay bumper. I found a beeline paint at HomeDepot which perfectly matched the bumper (Rustoleum truck bed coating)

The winch I chose is a HyperTough from Walmart...about $175. It is a smaller size made for side-by-Side ATVs. Rated for 5500 pounds. My original purchase was a HyperTough 1000 pound winch which I returned after I mocked it up to the Mav and found that the bumper would have to mount about 6" lower and 6" further out. While the big winch fit the bumper, it didn't fit the truck

The winch controls mount inside bumpers right side and I drilled holes just above it for the wired remote..

Last job was wiring the winch. I originally bought cables and fuses and everything else needed to hook to the 12 volt battery under the back seat. After rejecting several possible routes, I discovered that the wires only needed to reach to the engine bay. The hybrid has a post under the hood for hooking up jumper cables. It is in the upper left side of this picture. I wire from this post to a circuit breaker. The circuit breaker stays open when I'm not using the winch, and when I'm 50 miles from nowhere I'm not stranded by a blown fuse - just repair wires and reset the breaker.

I hope this "proof-of-concept " project will inspire someone to build a more polished, genuine, metal truck bumper

 

[Hot Runr Guy]

No nut, the bolt sticks through a 1" hole drilled in the bottom plate - welded in place where it pokes into the transport hold down hole in crossmember. Grind the threads down and the bolt is tight in hole - takes up thrust forces 360 degrees, you can push or pull bumper with no strain on rest of chassis.

Got it, thanks!

HRG

 

[RedRider]

I don't think anybody could legally sell that unit, as the beefy lower structure additions will seriously mess up the crush capability of the factory setup. That will mean that you get much higher Gs in a crash, raising your hospital costs (assuming that you survive that) dramatically, and raising the PL/PD part of your insurance a lot.
There is a reason why the front ends of all new vehicles are flimsy. Maybe make this up as a kit for the owner to install, so that the huge liability changes are on your own head instead of that of the maker of the bumper.

 

[Maverickman74]

Thats actually fairly decent. I commend your work and drive to do what needed to be done. I will have to look into this some day for my Tremor. I do not wank to block my untercooler though so i may just sort out a stronger bumper with a hitch receiver, that way I can have a winch in the bed on a mount to bring up front.

 

[Frick]

Those welds scare me.

Me too.

And I'm a professional welder.

One of my concerns is how it would change airbag deployment.

Further no way in hell I'd ever do this commercially as it's a liability nightmare.

Yeah, cool, but it's the OPs life at stake, not mine.

 

[Baloo]

Looks nice. Who did the welding, Ray Charles?

 

[Houndmav]

I’ll be honest. The only thing I’d be winching with this thing is a fisher price car, suck in puddle.

This is not safe.

 

[Bob The Builder]

Looks nice. Who did the welding, Ray Charles?

I worked refueling and maintenance outages on nuke plants in the northeast. I got to see the best welders in the world working the stainless piping. Inspiring to see the quality of their work. Got about a dozen belt buckles they would make and sell on their "down time".

 

[Baloo]

W

I worked refueling and maintenance outages on nuke plants in the northeast. I got to see the best welders in the world working the stainless piping. Inspiring to see the quality of their work. Got about a dozen belt buckles they would make and sell on their "down time".

Good welders are worth their price.

Whoever welder that I hope they know how to run a grinder.

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