Bumpers and winch mounts

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NSWolverine

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May 17, 2008
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Location
Falmouth, Nova Scotia
Does anyone have any aftermarket bumpers for the older style wolverines? any ideas on where to mount a winch? i have a bumper where my winch is now that sticks out rather far and digs in to the ground when crossing ditchs so id like to mount it back in the stock bumper or has anyone made a custom bumper? :)
 
i've build my own mount behind the original front bumper..i've relocated the oil cooler behind the front frame (the 2 hose are to long but i've roll them to fit her new position..and after that you have some place to fit the winch...
 
I did pretty much the same thing as Ch@ppy, but still need to do something more permanent with the oil cooler, and would actually like to get a larger one for better engine cooling and increased oil capacity.
 
When I bought mine, it was mounted thusly:
DSC02296.jpg

DSC02297.jpg


I was unimpressed and wanted it mounted more safely and hidden up by the front bumper. I basically cround and cut off the mount from teh previous owner and fabbed it more to my liking.

DSC02350.jpg


DSC02320.jpg


DSC02309.jpg


And the finished product:

DSC02323.jpg

DSC02368.jpg

DSC02369.jpg


That is unfortunately all of the pics I have right now, I can try to get more when I see the Wolvy this weekend.
 
Unfortunately, that is rather cheesily fixed right now. Like I said, I would really like to get a larger one frome somewhere else and do up a better mount. Right now, it is basically just hanging out just above and behind the winch... :cry:

Of course, now the Wolvy is in PA at girlfriends and I have much more limited amounts of time to get out there and tinker on it :roll:
 
Looks good but im still more partial to ohyeahfriday's setup. I do like the dark blue plastic though, i think it looks way better then the whiteish/light grey plastic i have
 
The advantage of my setup over the Warn one is the height of the winch. Mine is more likely to be pulling the front end upwards, which would help if it was sunk in mud. Where as WolvyDudes could be pulling the front end downward into the muck. Just a possibility, not saying it is a bad setup at all, at least you have a name brand winch, mine came with some off brand thing that I hope holds up... :lol:
I can try to get more specific pictures of my setup this weekend if you want...
 
That is likely what you will have to do.
DSC02297.jpg

In this picture, you can almost see how it was mounted before, there is a piece of metal that the winch sits on itself, with another piece of approx. 2" wide flat stock welded to the front, and angling back to the botom of the bash plate for support. I think they had another piece of steel incorporated, but can't remember exactly.

My setup in a nutshell:

The Wolverine came with a horizontal frame brace, a piece of flat steel welded in between the front frame rails. I welded a piece of angle iron to this for mounting the new base to. You can see the sides of this angle iron in the following picture:
DSC02320.jpg

You can also see a second piece of flat steel welded between the frame rails above the winch base piece, this was done basically for extra support on the front end and add an extra brace to the base to preven any possible movement or flexing. Now it comes down to mounting the actual base. It is welded to the angle iron as well as the new horizontal frame brace. The piece of metal which was previously welded to the bottom of the bash plate just had to be slightly rebent and welded to the bottom of the original horizontal frame brace.

Like I said, that is it in a nutshell, and I can get the pics this weekend. You can get a rough idea of locations of parts based on the location of bolt holes for the bash plate and front bumper. I have to tell you, there was a good bit of time spent on mocking this all up with vise grips to get a good fitment under the front bumper. I wanted the rollers to be as close to the bottom tube of the bumper as I could get it without getting too close. As you can see, I eventually got it pretty close


Biggest downside to my setup is it is permanent. It is probably about as rugged as any other out there, but it is there until it gets removed with a cutting torch or grinder/cutoff wheel.
 
As long as it still works in that location, im not worried of ever removing it. I really wish yamaha would of done somthing like this insted of throughin the "wench bumper" way out front
 
Oh, it works, and I liked the outcome more than I expected. The winch is safely tucked in there, offers more protection to the oil cooler from sticks being jabbed in there.

Now, I just REALLY need to get something done with the oil cooler :roll:
 
It is not mounted well, I need to fab something up for it, and hopefully find a larger one 8)
 
Well, mine is a little beat up, but I want a larger one to increase the oil capacity and hopefully offer more cooling since these old dogs are air cooled.
 
I will offer help whenever I can.

These forums are based upon support from the general public, I am merely a servant. Ask away... 8)
 
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