So I've been looking at the aftermarket winch bumper selections, and honestly it's kind of disappointing. It seems like every manufacturer makes this giant platform that sticks way out in front of the Jeep, and it just looks kinda bad to me.

I can't seem to find much of anything that looks remotely appealing to hold a winch on the front of my XJ down the road. Does anyone know of a winch bumper that actually looks pretty decent, and doesn't hang a mile out in front?

 

http://www.trailready.com/bumpers/jeep_cherokee.html http://www.jcroffroad.com/product/XJB/XJFV.html http://www.dirtboundoffroad.com/jeep...j/bumpers.html http://aresfabrication.com/?page_id=5

 

That's a decent looking hunk of steel right there. Definitely looks better with the grill guard on it. Without the grill guard it looks similar to others, so I wonder if that's the bigger factor. I wonder what kind of pricing they have on those ones.

 

Did you look at all 4 links?If your talking about the trail ready bumper they are never cheap probably a grand.One i forgot about http://www.quadratec.com/products/72025_802X_PG.htm same bumper with out the hoop http://www.quadratec.com/products/72025_803X_PG.htm

 

I actually didn't notice that there were 4 links until you mentioned that, so I had only seen the trail ready bumper. At about a grand that's in the territory of an ARB bull bar.

I had seen the ORFab bumper before, and it's definitely a possibility, I just wish I could see that one in person before jumping on it.

I kinda wish they still made the XJ hidden winch mounts to just stuff a winch behind a stock bumper. I've seen some fabrication threads making them, but while I have the ability, I no longer have access to the tools needed to fab something like that up.

Anyway, thanks for all the links! Definitely gives me some ideas to consider.

 

Rusty's off road .. the winch sits inside it, right in front of the cross member. some people think the mounting isn't as strong as it could be, but you can beef it up with something like jcr's unibody reinforcement kit.

 

Email trail ready and ask the price to really know,As far as a hidden winch its hard to do on a xj the body has a crossmember in the way is why most top mount it on the bumper.

 

Hidden winches are the new thing on XJ's. A few companies are doing now and many more will be following.

 

Its hard to fit a big winch in a small space with out pushing the bumper way out.

 

I also am always on the look out for good ideas for winch bumpers. Whenever I get around to building one I want to make it as recessed as possible without cutting the crossmember. I'll probably cut out part of the grill a bit so I can mount the winch a little higher and save some approach angle.

 

I built a stubby to hide the winch out of the elements, and not block the air flow to the radiator, keeping a great approach angle ,and it looks cool.

 

Bam! That's its. I'm assuming you had to cut the crossmember out though, correct?

 

This is dirtbound offroads extreme winch bumper. It has about the least space that you can get away with to fit a winch in. It doesn't have a lot of room at all front to back behind the winch. But I love the bumper. Very well made. I have had it for about 3 years now.

 

http://www.orsfab.com/bumpers.html

A high clearance stubby is now at the top of my list.

 

yes I had to cut the cross member and I actually copied ors fab stubby on the link that sreeb posted.