Winch Mount Alteration

I had a go at trial fitting the winch bikini mount, together with the winch and bullbar, to see how much alteration may be needed. As I said before, the winch mount was going to need some work for it to fit in a more secure fashion than Bearmach seem to find acceptable (attached to bumper only!). I also had strong suspicions that having the winch mounted above the top of the bumper would result in its solenoid bridge fouling the light bar on the bull bar. Well, it does. No real suprises there. In the pictures, the bull bar is sitting approx 1.5″ further forward than it should in order to clear the winch (1″ gap, though it looks closer in the pics). the top bolt holes in the bullbar feet should coincide with the winch mount’s holes, but you can see how far they’re out.

Instead of making up some extensions for the winch plate to tie it back to the chassis, I’m going to remove the vertical strip from its underside. This strip sits along the front edge of the bumper, with 2 bolt holes to secure the front of the mount (making a total of 6 securing bolts). The mount will then be set back so that the top holes line up with the bumper bolts. The front of the mount will be attached to the bumper again for stability, but by drilling vertically through both near to the bumper’s fron edge. The mount’s ends will be trimmed to fit behind the bullbar feet (which are attached only to the bumper, not the chassis). This way, the winch will sit nearer the rad, allowing direct mounting to the chassis and correct location and clearing of the bull bar. The bottom of the Defender front panel will need some slight work around the bottom edges, but I anticipate fitting the full Def grille without cutting holes in it; if some areas do need trimming away, this will pose no problem.