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The previous owner had stripped the electric winch off the front of my M998 leaving the front view rather bleak.
A short time ago I asked if anyone ever built a front bumper in the same style as the airlift rear bumper I had just installed on my machine, of course it was not needed as there are the large loops protruding out of the hood, The only thing I found was a few rigs with channel applied to the front and that was not a good look IMHO.
SO I built this bumper (2X6X3/16), I could have saved some time and trouble by welding the newly fabricated brackets directly to the bumper instead of bushing, welding and grinding every hole through the bumper, I used 1/2" sch 40 for the 5/8" and sch 80 for the 1/2" holes, but I wanted to more or less replicate the rear bumper.
BTW that is a 12K Mile Marker hydraulic winch (yep its in there, still need to lay in the new cable) Mounted to a modified REAR mount, the factory front was about 10X as much and would not work well in this design anyway, it of course is not tucked up as much as the factory front mount but it does not reduce overall ground clearance just may reduce the approach angle a little bit. the new brackets mount the bumper 3/4" farther forward than the original mount would have.
So I think it came out fairly nice! now on to fabricating the brush guard!!
Edit, I added a couple pics of the mount, first I shortened it by 7 1/2" then I added some strap to the top to bolt to the back of the bumper (that was a real fast "shallow" pass on the front as the 2X6 bumper had to fit flush against it) then I trimmed off the sides.
The only way I could tuck it in shuch a tight spot was to turn the winch where the solenoid valve was on the front and passenger side, this can only be done with the 12K winch as the 10K does not have as many mounting options as the 12K (mounting holes on three sides rather than only one) an electric should be fine.
A short time ago I asked if anyone ever built a front bumper in the same style as the airlift rear bumper I had just installed on my machine, of course it was not needed as there are the large loops protruding out of the hood, The only thing I found was a few rigs with channel applied to the front and that was not a good look IMHO.
SO I built this bumper (2X6X3/16), I could have saved some time and trouble by welding the newly fabricated brackets directly to the bumper instead of bushing, welding and grinding every hole through the bumper, I used 1/2" sch 40 for the 5/8" and sch 80 for the 1/2" holes, but I wanted to more or less replicate the rear bumper.
BTW that is a 12K Mile Marker hydraulic winch (yep its in there, still need to lay in the new cable) Mounted to a modified REAR mount, the factory front was about 10X as much and would not work well in this design anyway, it of course is not tucked up as much as the factory front mount but it does not reduce overall ground clearance just may reduce the approach angle a little bit. the new brackets mount the bumper 3/4" farther forward than the original mount would have.
So I think it came out fairly nice! now on to fabricating the brush guard!!
Edit, I added a couple pics of the mount, first I shortened it by 7 1/2" then I added some strap to the top to bolt to the back of the bumper (that was a real fast "shallow" pass on the front as the 2X6 bumper had to fit flush against it) then I trimmed off the sides.
The only way I could tuck it in shuch a tight spot was to turn the winch where the solenoid valve was on the front and passenger side, this can only be done with the 12K winch as the 10K does not have as many mounting options as the 12K (mounting holes on three sides rather than only one) an electric should be fine.
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