I just wanted to share with you my homemade XJ front tow hook. After a ton of searching around i came to the conclusion that putting a good heavy duty front tow hook on my XJ was gonna be expensive and not too easy. My dad has a Ford f250 Super duty and he had to change the frame on it due to it being rusty. Before he scrapped the frame i stole the two front tow hooks off of it.

I got the torch out and cut the angled brackets off so just the looped metal was left. then i pulled my front bumper off to see where the hell this thing was gonna go

At first i just attached the hook to the stock front frame rail because i needed to get the hook on really quick as i was invited to go wheeling the next day.

As you can guess it was not very stable and that would be an issue if it was going to pull my *** out of the mud so i found some scrap plate steel to reinforce it with.

I dusted off the old drill press and got it all to fit with the new reinforcement plate.
My next task was to fit the front bumper. Since i reused the old front bumper holes for my hook I had to find some longer bolts and match them up with the bolts on the hook. Once i got the mount all set up I test fitted the front bumper and marked out the area where the hook would pop through then cut it out.

Then i bolted the bumper back together and this thing looks mint!

Ready for the trails!

 

i would weld the reinforcing plate to the frame, as now it is still as strong as the thin frame

 

X2 but good work!

 

Nice. Much better than the downward facing hooks.

 

very nice mod while still keeping the stock front bumper.