Winch Access on a Winch Bumper

Just ordered a winch bumper, noticing there aren't any access points to operate my Smitybuilt winch?

The winch I have isn't a wireless remote. I have to manually plug in the remote, as-well as manually manage the reverse, or forward option.

With all the winch Bumpers I've seen for our trucks, and the one I just ordered...how do you access things, in order to operate it?

 

You just pop the hood and reach in.

 

You'll have to open the hood and reach down over the grille.

 

Okay, sweet. I was sweating bullets for a moment. I knew there had to be a way to access it. And I know people still use the old school style winches Thanks so much.

 

No problem. You could also move the winch solenoid up a bit for easier plug access as that requires a little more finesse than working the winch clutch. This may be necessary anyways depending on clearance in there. Usually those low profile bumpers don't have a lot of room to work with.

https://shop.tandemoffroad.com/coll...r-mount-3rd-gen-tacoma-winch-controller-mount

 

Aftermarket wireless remotes are cheap and easy to retro-fit. My Smitybuilt has a wireless remote. The newer SB winches have wireless. How old is yours, and which model?

 

Just a quick cliff note. I bought and installed that bumper. Wasnt too hard but I did require to cut a significant amount of the hood latch handle metal with tin snips in order to get my winch control box to fit. But everything is a breeze to use and works flawlessly. As far as the light bar, it did require some modifications to get installed. Pm me for info

 

I also recently installed this bumper. With the which I was using, there was no way to orient the winch such that the line would NOT rub on the mounting plate due to the awkwardly low fairlead location. I ended up cutting a new hole where the DV8 logo is and putting my hawse fairlead there + put a plate over the original fairlead opening.

I also had difficulty getting everything mounted. You are supposed to put the bumper brackets on, then put the bumper back on, then slide the new metal bumper part through and bolt it onto the brackets. With a winch installed, there was no way for me to fit the bolts in after. I really have no idea how you were supposed to do this per the directions unless you were using a tiny winch. In any case, I ended up installing the whole new bumper, then putting the stock plastic bumper on over it all. This required me to cut the stock bumper at the very bottom to allow everything to spread enough to fit over. In the end, it all fit nice and looks good, but the install is not easy and trying to do it following the instructions is impossible.

 

Completely agree. If you are willing to struggle and cuss, you will get this on. I didnt want to cut into my truck just yet but I will be replacing this with a different bumper in the far future.

 

That awkward fairlead position had me going from liking that bumper to crossing it off my list. That's gonna be hard on either cable or synthetic.

As for wireless, yeah...nice, but you still need to be able to freespool the clutch to pay out line. Powering out cable, especially lengthy amounts, puts a lot of unnecessary load and heat on the winch.

 

So this was a concern of mine when I purchased my sso bumper. I ended up clocking my winch to rotate the clutch lever forward to access it from the bumper opening. And me being shorter 5'7" access the stuff via grill was going to be a pain. So I ended up relocating the control box to a Rago bracket. Then I also wired in the badlands wireless winch controller as it seems to be a little better quality then some others.