Review on WARN 74247 Winch Mounting Plate by David Sidman

Winch mass mounting plate. I was actually surprised at how light the factory bumper is, which makes me wonder how effective it is. This mounting plate is very strong and looks great when the winch is installed. The winch is not attached directly to the bumper, but above it to brackets that are bolted to the Jeep frame, and the bumper brackets are welded to the end of the frame. This mount consists of two front frame mounts, two rear frame mounts, a cross member, a winch plate and two tow hooks to replace the factory assemblies. Customers who want to install a winch and have not planned it. WARN didn't help with some of their instructions, where the first step is to remove the fender and save the plastic mounts. These fasteners use a plastic screw to spread and lock the body of the fastener. Only one came out as it should, the rest either ripped off the screw head or the plastic threads so they had to be pulled out and thus rendered useless again. This required a trip to town to find a replacement, new ones had to be inducted. A Jeep dealer will sell you a nine-set for almost thirty dollars. The local parts store sells them for fifty-nine cents each. You were one of them, but you can use regular steel bolts. The next step is to remove the plastic part in front of the grate. Well, to save you half an hour, I'm telling you to do the third step first, which is to remove the bumper, otherwise you won't be able to get this part out. It also has two plastic fasteners that I had to drill out; At least it won't be replaced. The rear frame mounts attach to the Jeep body frame with two bolts each, so you have to stick your fingers in that frame, which has a metal channel welded to it under the hole, and install washers and a nut, which isn't an easy task. Flag nuts that have a tongue attached would help a lot of people get them in place and a way to hold them in place while tightening since you can't get a wrench in there. A nut that doesn't require flat washers or lock washers would help a lot if the nut had a lug to prevent it from turning when the bolt is tightened. Incidentally, for the top screw, the lock washer must be fitted on the screw side, not on the nut side, otherwise it will not fit, as the instructions say, but it is easy to overlook. This information should have been printed in red because after spending 15 minutes fitting washers and nuts into the frame, it is very frustrating to take it all apart again. Ask me how I know. The front frame mounts replace the tow hook mounts and are held in place with eight bolts and have a tab that goes through the top of the plastic bumper piece that may need to be cut off to fit. This protrusion should line up with the hole in the rear frame mounts. Lie on your back, hold the bumper and make sure the 8 holes in the bumper line up with the front frame mounts and frame by feel. I finally screwed in the bolts and noticed that the tab on the front struts doesn't line up with the rear struts, you can't see these holes while under it. After about 6 hours in my garage, which was 100 degrees, I had the parts in place, but some of the bolt holes still didn't line up, so I drove the Jeep to the local machine shop, where they spent another 2 hours to figure it out getting everything installed and adding the winch minus the wiring I did. Overall this is a quality mount, but if you need to install one it can cost as much as a winch. I'm happy with the results but wouldn't get it again knowing what I know now. I don't know if it would be easier to install a bumper to replace the winch, but I suspect it will. After you've done one of these setups, the next one will be much faster if you have more than one jeep. In your case, the holes can line up and you won't have any problems at all. I blame Jeep not WARN for most of the issues I had with this setup. Once the installation pain is gone my rating will likely be higher.