Do you need a steel bumper for a winch?

Just wondering if anyone has done a winch without a steel bumper. And if there any pros and cons.

 

https://www.pfadventure.com/product...LITB0qzA1mjFQmTlL4lUCcmCIg2obeMxoCA2UQAvD_BwE

There are several hidden winch mounts available

 

Get an SOS or Warn hidden bumper

 

Warn winch with an aluminum Pelfreybilt bumper:



Make sure you get some STOUT bumper brackets though. I went BIG and ordered some Brute Force Fab brackets:

 

Cool this is what I was thinking as a alternate to not putting a steel bumper on.

thanks

 

Got anymore pictures of how those reinforcement brackets mount? Looks a lot beefier than the little Pelfreybilt brackets my bumper came with.

 

http://mobtownoffroad.com/product/3rd-gen-tacoma-front-recovery-bar/

use a winch that mounts in a receiver, then you can run it from the front or the rear of the truck, which ever is best at the time of need.

 

I went with a reciever hitch cradle mount for my winch, and have a hitch front and rear on my truck, so I can pull from either direction on the truck now.

I also found a Pull Pal 6-ton anchor on CL, so can self-recover (mostly) without having to bury a spare tire or dead man anchor (we don’t have trees out here).

 

Side view:



The third bolt on the frame goes through an existing hole already in the frame and there is a second piece that "sandwiches" the frame. See the piece on the far right in the photo below:

 

will I need to take my bumper off to access the hole, for these brackets? @Darkgoatracer

 

Thats what i hear.

 

Picture? Don't know what that is.

Always carried a couple of 6" telephone pole anchors when surveying to get us out of a mess when nothing was in reach of the winch cable.

Would like to see what doesn't require burial.

 

What @Clearwater Bill and @OnHartung'sRoad said. I did exactly that.

 

I did not have to remove the bumper to reach that hole on the frame. Easy job you can do by yourself.

 

going to message Billy now

 

Westin makes a brush guard with a winch mount. Pro: it's easy to reach your handle to flip the winch into free wheel, It provides some protection for your grill and lights. You can bump an obstruction pretty hard without hurting anything, 2 tow points, place to mount aux lights. Con: could be easy to steal a winch out of, slightly decreases approach angle, may not stop a deer strike if you hit the deer near the head lights. Neither pro nor con: I'm 5'7" and I have to stand on it to wax the hood.

 

http://www.pullpal.com/

 

Packages from Billy are MUCH cooler than packages from me..

 

Ive only tested my Pull Pal anchor a couple times, on a steep slope with hard rocky soil and in sand. They do require a bit of placement finesse- but really dig in. There are much cheaper versions online, but this one is really heavy duty and works. I think it would be very useful for beaches and mud, hard pack DG and rocks are a bit difficult to grab and need a person on it to help guide it when starting a pull. I found mine used on CL using Searchtempest.

 

Nice.

I'd have given one of my bosses body parts to have one of those instead of hand burying a 6' long 6" diameter anchor.

Just kidding. He always waded in and helped with the digging and turning. Ex Marine DI, but I wasn't his boot all the time.

Or it could have been that he just wanted to go home faster, so he helped.