Winch Bumper Recommendations?

winch and wench stickers. My oh my you live dangerously Jefe!

A great informative thread. Great posts to all!

Mello Mike wrote:

wintersun wrote:
Be careful as these replacement bumpers can result in the air bags not activating in an accident. The airbags are usually activated by sensors behind the bumpers and designed to work in tandem with an impact. The people selling these bumpers are either not aware or not about to hurt their business by mentioning this aspect of the "upgrade".

That's a great point, Bruce. Thanks for bringing that up.

Mike

Before assuming there is a "sensor behind the bumper that activates the airbags", it might be useful to check the wiring diagrams and look behind the bumper itself. It is just as likely that there is nothing of the kind in that location or even general vicinity.

In the earliest days of airbags, sensors behind the bumper were common, but that was a quarter century ago. Neither my Ford nor my Chevy trucks have anything like that in the front, and they are both about a decade old now.

With bumpers and grilles removed, and factory wiring diagrams in hand, I was able to verify this.

I'm not saying that adding an aftermarket bumper won't have any effect on crash energy absorption and the load paths the impact takes throughout the rest of the vehicle in distributing that energy... but I am saying that the sensors that trigger airbags do not necessarily require a "direct" or "line of site" hit to activate, and therefore the sensors are not necessarily required to be behind the bumper.

IMHO, like others have mentioned, putting on an aftermarket HD bumper, or whatever you want to call it, calls into question several factors:

1. The ability of your vehicle to properly absorb a head on collision. All those crumple zones are designed to reduce the G'forces you encounter in a head-on. Putting a battering ram on the front will direct a greater percentage of that impact to the passengers.

2. You are now messing up with all the front end factory set geometry, especially if your truck was not engineered for a front snow plow. Translation, your tires are going to wear abnormally.

3. The extra weight, especially if you then add a winch, will effect handling, something most of our rigs can do without.

Again, just my opinion, but they are the reasons I chose not to put one on my truck.

I carry a high end 30,000 lb tow strap, a shovel and a good sense of what my truck camper can and can't do.

Edit: Nevermind I see you have a Buckstop on order, they look nice.
Let us know how you like it once you have it installed!

okan-star wrote:

Mello Mike wrote:
Good question, okan-star. I'm shopping for a good quality winch, too. There are lots of winch manufacturers out there like Warn, Ramsey, Mile Marker, Bulldog, Superwinch, and Smittybilt, just to name a few. I'm still researching them all, but I do know that the Smittybilt winches are made in China. Personally, I would never buy re-badged Chinese junk. It's just not worth it. I want a reliable winch, not something that will breakdown after a few pulls.

Yes but I think the are all made in China now ,not sure about Milemarker , don't think I want to hook one to my power steering pump really

Connecting to the power steering pump is as easy as changing the power steering hose. Mine has not seen that much service but no leaks or other issues in 10 years.

Hydraulic is a continuous duty winch and will never run your battery down or get hot from use. Second or more battery is not required.

There might be a few conditions where hydraulic has limits such as stalled while crossing a stream or a rollover. A battery operated unit may also be limited in these situations.

Maybe I am being; "Captain Obvious" here, but why do you need the cover? Is your winch completely covered all the way around? So what does the lid on top do to protect the road debris from the bottom and other areas? Where I am from, there is a bunch of snow/slush/mud that would and does collect in and around my bumper. Wouldn't the cover also retain moisture, in humid and wet areas?

Thanks.

b

Another buckstop fan here.

I put mine through (literally) a dodge neon last fall. Painted the bumper. I've got some frame twist issues now....because these things don't absorb any impact, they transfer it. Still, I walked away. I also have doubts about my airbags still being hooked up....even though it was installed by a "reputable" body shop (If such a thing even exists).

While we are on the subject of winches.....what is your choice, steel cable or spydura synthetic rope?

On my Buckstop the access is nice and large , there's a latch in front and some welded on interlocking fingers in the rear, it has to be fully removed , the cover probably weighs 5 lb by itself ,if using the winch I`d probably put it on the floor in the backseat area of the truck so it didn't get left on the trail
I'm looking forward to installing a winch in my bumper, the only hard part looks like lifting 125- 150 lbs up though the under side of the bumper and into its home - floor jack time
Probably makes it harder to steal though

jefe 4x4 wrote:
I didn't know that Ramsey was still made here. Good for them. AFA Warn, I got the memo from a reliable source on the Pirate Page. It now looks like partial info to me.
One last issue that came to mind is the actual access to the winch controls and the ability to adjust the wrap of the cable at the end of each row upon rewind. With a complete, unremovable top cover this looks like building a ship in a bottle to me. If you don't 'dress' your wire rope at each wrap row upon rewind, the life expectancy of said rope is greatly diminished.
On my old '66 Land Cruiser FJ40 the winch controls were a couple levers on the floor above the power take-off face on the transfer case, so I applied a labelmaker big red plastic label above the controls on the dash that said, "WINCH". On the glove box door just in front of the passenger seat I had another label reading, "WENCH". It took Jeanie a while to realize the not-so-subtle difference and it was quickly vaporized.
Winch On!
jefe

Jefe, the Buckstop bumpers have an access door on the top of the bumper so you can perform winching operations and perform maintenance on the winch. That was a must-have item for me. If you look closely at the pic below you can see the black lift tab.