Front crossmember and winch

After looking at a couple years worth of threads, I still have questions. I am putting a winch on my 75 and am not sure of how to deal with the front crossmember. Is it OK to just remove it and replace it with the winch plate? If so, any suggestions on remounting the grille shell? Sorry if this is dumb, but I'd like to learn from other's experience before tweaking my frame doing something stupid.

 

:iagree: dont wanna do something you might regret latter,frame tweaking and such is a major modification that may cause a problem that isint such an ez fix later down the line some of these guys will chime in,and some are pretty darn smart

 

hey dan,you read my mind,gotta winch myself,stands back with full attetion

 

I want to mount it on top of the rails, but the crossmember is also flush with the top of the rail so there's no room to install nuts and bolts without raising the winch mount well above the frame which isn't a good situation.

I've seen a few pics of Jeeps with the crossmember removed, but no commentary about it.

 

Likely not removed - instead, built that way. The frame design changed in 1972,with frames having the large, flat crossmember in front of the grille like your Jeep has. Prior to '72, the crossmember was under the grill, and the area behind the bumper was empty. The bumper was riveted in place and acted as something of a crossmember. From '72, the bumper is just bolted on. Also from '72 on, the change in steering design probably required a bigger, more rigid front crossmember.

Don't cut your crossmember thinking that others have done it to mount a winch ... IMO you'd be making a costly mistake.

 

Thanks for the replies. I managed to dig around and found the proper way to mount a winch on this vehicle. I knew I just wasn't connecting all the dots

 

I got rid of the front crossmember in my jeep when I mounted my winch. The grill is mounted with two rubber bushings on top of each frame rail-nothing in the middle anymore. With a 1/4 inch plate welded in the same place as the factory crossmember, I didn't have a reason to keep it.

 

My 72 did not have a foward cross member.
I cut up a warn bumper for a 83-88 GM 1500, and the winch plate section of it just happened to be about 1/2" shorter than the inside width of the frame rails. So i notched the winch plate to slide in and clear the steering bod and this was the result. (note: i was mounting a 8274 which has a "foot foward" mounting pattern.) This mount is so beefy, that i figure its stronger than any factory crossmember since is made out of all 3/16" and 1/4" steel.

 

I didn't have to touch my cross member to install mine. I used a warn winch mount plate.

 

I asked this very same ? over at the www.nw-wheelers.com site and here is what they said.....

http://www.nw-wheelers.com/forum/showthread.php?t=13239

 

Yours is one of the ones I looked closely at. I assume the angle brackets on the outside of your frame are spaced above the frame rails. If so, how far above the rails are they? I assume just enough to clear the bolt heads?

On looking at it a little closer, are the four bolts through the top of the frame your mounting bolts?

 

The four bolts that come up only go through the angle and into the mounting plate. The angles only sit high enough to clear the bolt heads. You can see the mount plate is about an inch total higher than the bumper. I welded a piece in there just to close the gap. I also welded the angles to the plate and welded the angles to my bumper. I also added some gussets while I was at it. My tow points go all the way through the bumper and are actually bolted to the frame horns. The biggest issue with mine is I will either have to do some cutting or some really fancy work with a wrench to get the winch off again. The bolts through the mount to the winch are very well hidden. I find that as a plus. Would hate to have my winch stolen.