Not a difficult installation; just time consuming. About 4-5 hours including the installation of the winch itself.
It can easily be a one-person job . . . . all the way up to the point where you need to grab a neighbor to help lift the 140 beast up onto the mounting brackets.
Factory bumper and bezel removal was a piece of cake. About 10 minutes to strip off the entire plastic front end.
The majority of time is spent attaching the many supplied brackets, bolts, washers and nuts prior to actually hanging the bumper.
The fit tolerences are very tight, so some tweeking is required to get them aligned properly. Of course, all nuts and bolts are to be left untightened until the bumper is on and aligned.
I didn't take photos of the step-by-step process since Warn's instruction manual has fantastic close-up pics of each step. (I'll try posting that manual later in this thread.)
After the bumper is hung on the exisitng bumper frame brackets and the six additional Warn brackets, you have to throw some brute force into aligning the bumper. The Hi-Lift came in handy to nudging up one side or the other prior to nut and bolt tightening.
Warn did their homework when designing this bumper for the FJ. Once it was installed, there were no gaps, wierd protrusions nor a look that made it look like it was made universally for some other vehicles.
The bottom of the bumper conforms perfectly to the factory skid plate, almost as if they were one continuous piece.
Once the bumper installation was complete, it was a breeze dropping the Warn M8000 into the open top tray. The actual winch installation took less than 15 minutes.
Rather than mounting the winch solenoid box on the winch itself, I ended up putting it inside the engine compartment. That required a couple of additonal 6-foot 2 AWG battery cables and fabricating a bracket that attached right behind the fuse box.
The end result: Perfect (if I do say so myself).
Total front end drop after bumper and winch installation: 1/2"
The OME heavy 886 definitely do their job.
Before bumper and winch:
After bumper and winch:
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