well since i dont have any tow hooks for the front of my jeep, and with winter coming up, never know when they will come in handy. I thought about getting another set of C4x4 Fab tow hooks(I've had them before and they are great!) but I decided to fab up my own dealie.

I plan on making what will be a front hitch. Online they want $120-ish for one and the receiver for the hitch is located below the bumper. I plan to make mine with the receiver in the middle of the bumper. So it will be easier to get at if I do end up in a snow bank.

Materials:
4 feet of 1/4in thick, 6in wide flat steel
4 feet of 1/4in thick, 5in wide C channel

Total Cost of material: $55


Starting this afternoon


Step One. Remove bumper


Step Two: Remove steering box box, or in my case, snap 2 of them, and break the steering box spacer


Step Three: Make a cardboard template


Step Four: Drill holes



Step Five: Make another bracket plate for passenger side

Step Six: Cut section of C channel for brace across and to weld receiver to


And this is where i stopped. Tomorrow I gotta hit up the junkyard for the steering box bolts and spacer that broke, pick up a receiver tube.

I plan on welding some plate to the end of the channel with holes drilled for the bolts, then add a gusset from the C channel to the side brackets to give it more support.(i hope that makes sense,...)

A few problems I see running into is not having enough room to put a nut on the very front 2 bolts. Looks pretty tight to the C channel. I'm gonna secure the C channel to the front crossmember with a few bolts. Maybe that will suck it back and give me more room to put some nuts for the bolts,...

I plan on welding the receiver tube to the Channel, reinforce the receiver with some gusseting. Should be stout enough to pull from. I should be able find the parts I need for the steering box at the junkyard, if those dont break when trying to get them off,....

When its all done, I'll cut a hole out in the bumper, throw a D-ring receiver in it, and it will look like a nose ring!

 

thats gonna be a LONG bumper

haha, looks good so far.

 

uugh! I feel your pain bro I just did the same thing to my gearbox! So i bought a new box, the threads were fubar $127 from oreilly, and chrysler wants $127 for the spacer!!!! If they had it which they dont and said theyre out of production too!! So i ordered the C-Rok inner brace $57 bucks shipped. Just a lil fyi.....

 

I'm gonna order a better spacer from one of the vender tomorrow. Havent decided which one. For now, I threw a few washers welded together to get me through tomorrow and tuesday. I'm off wednesday and thrusday. Plus i got another vehicle i could drive if need be.





Braced both sides, thats as far as I got today. Had other stuff going on,..

 

Looks cool so far. Not at all like other things I've seen.

 

Are you gunna be putting the stock bumper skin back on top of that?

 

would be a great excuse to throw a durango box in there, cheap easy uprade, doin mine this week, i run 36's tho so i kinda need it

 

Finished it up yesterday. Welded the receiver in, trimmed the bumper skin and slapped it on.

This is my DD for now, so I dont think i would use the Durango box to it full potential.


^didnt quite measure right, but my lisence plate will cover it up the gap below the hitch receiver. oh well




The only down side to this, is that I have to remove the bumper to swap out receivers. Which is no big deal cause i only plan on using that receiver as a recovery point. Throw a d-ring receiver in there and slap the bumper back on and thats it.

Cost of the 2in receiver: $18
Miss Bolts and nuts: $10

Total build cost: $83

 

This thing is pretty cool. Nice welds too.

 

Looks good BUT how do you gin access to the receiver pin hole?

 

look really good. creative. and i wonder that as well. did you cut an access hole for the hitch pin? do you plan on building a spring loaded one?

 

if you read instead of just looking at pictures he states that he has to remove the bumper.

 

Awesome! Great design & idea! Welds came out great!

Props to you good sir!

 

Looks good and very nice welds.

 

Yeah, thats the only downfall to this design,.. but I'm fine with it. I dont think I'll ever remove the receiver from the front hitch.