New Logan's Metals winch bumper

[mizedog]

I finally got a winch to adorn the winch bumper. I toiled over chosing between the Superwinch (I love it, but it's heavy), the Warn M8000 (get's me the name, but I hear it has solenoid problems), and the Smittybilt. I ended up going with the Smitty w/ synthetic line to keep the weight down. Keeping the weight down is really important to me for this daily driver. I've read that this newer series wound winch is really a rebadged T-Max and is pretty solid. I'll give it a try. If it crashes on me, I'll probably trade it in for the M8000. Here's the first pics:


I can't see any sagging in the front end. It's seems to be at the same ride height

I still have to get the fog lights on there. Note that the mounting bolts that came with the winch are 10Mx1.5x30mm. That's not long enough to get through the 7/16" of bumper/plate material. I had to buy some 40mm long bolts which were perfect. Any longer would have hit the body of the winch and broken the winch body.

Oh, the tires ROCK in the snow and ice. The sipes really open up to grip the snow. See:
There is rubbing on the Rusty's flares, but that should be easy to deal with.

[Mudderoy]

Very nice! Thanks for the pictures. It will be interesting to hear how the Smitty built treats you over time. I suspect it will be just fine, and you'll feel great about saving 200.

[mizedog]

It's been a while since I've updated this. The bumper was really stout in Moab last week. Several times I thought I would hit approaching a ledge on on Poison Spider/Golden Spike/Gold Bar Rim but only touched a couple of times (once on the ledge going up the canyon on Kane Creek - no I didn't take the bypass). The one place I thought I'd struggle was Golden Crack. Clearance wasn't a problem, only the lack of a front locker (and short arm limitations). Here's video of the Golden Crack showing I had plenty of approach angle over the left front tire. Even straight on was ok for almost all situations.
Fortunately, I never had to use the winch.
I'm toiling over the decision to add my fog lights as I'd have to put them further apart which doesn't look as good.

Here's the video:
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