Build Your Own Baseplates Anyone

I do engineer, weld, and fabricate but I bought something like this to start with. I did not have anything in stock that would make it easy to build my own brackets but adapting them to the vehicle was easy.
From what you have said... pay the $400.

I helped install "base plate" on Hummer H3, little more than an S-10 pickup except with a metal bumper. On one side, half of the "plate" bolted to where a towing eye came off and wasn't replaced. On the other side, some bumper bolts came out, went through that half of "plate" then Bumper then the "horns" (flange) on front of Frame Rail. BUT!!! BLueOX added a heavy angle bracket bridging the backside of the Horns to the Side of the Frame. Holes had to be drilled crosswise through the Frame to attach those Brackets.

This made it clear that engineers concluded that a tow ring mounting that serves for a few yards every few years (if ever) is NOT adequate for towing the truck day after day for year after year.

Just download the instructions. You can see how a manufacturer who realizes that (like you) that liability attaches to towing, felt they were creating a reliable design. See if you want to build what their analysis called "adequate." Then figure the cost.

As you know, the bumpers on a Jeep are cheesy to say the least. I knew when I bought it that I wanted aftermarket front and rear bumpers and settled on Shrockworks bumpers. After purchasing, I built a base plate from angle iron with a piece of plate welded in the middle with a hole for the pins of the tow bar. Worked great! I no longer have the Jeep, and bought the base plate for the CRV. I did however install the baseplate, which they said should take 4 hours according to the youtube video. Lots of plastic to take off and re-install. If I hadn't been retired, I would have paid to have it installed.

Made my own for my 1997 Jeep

I'm a welder and fabricator yet I look at some manufactured items and consider the time and cost involved and there are those occasions when i just buy them. I have an aftermarket bumper

on my 08 JK and I fabricated the plates to fasten the tow bar to. A good welding shop is going to cost as much as buying from the manufacturer.

You can always order the bracket kit from Roadmaster, then use it as a pattern for the Jeep, and then send back the Roadmaster kit, and say 'Just kidding' I did not want it. At least you will know what to build, and what shape and thickness all that metal has to be.

Roadmaster is located in Vancouver WA, near the boarder.

Fred.