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What I did was take a
curt front hitch reciever and modify it so instead of it going below the bumper bar, it goes above, thus allowing you use it as a winch mount.
Step 1
Chop it up real good. I cut off the tow points and the part of the hitch reciever that gets bolted onto the fj's tow points.
Step 2 - the slot
Of course there are different ways to cut the slot. (I used a band saw)
Drill holes for a slot
Step 3
cut the slot out. I used a band saw.
Step 4 - Intsallation
To get it on the FJ I had to remove the bumper, move the AC line, then chop a little bit:
Then drill some new holes for the bolts.
The test went well. I pulled on a tree untill it stalled, kind of scary but necessary. I've got a video of it but i need to edit out the swearing(the winch was doing weird things, turned out I had, sort of, screwed up the motor when I wired it, but I managed to fix it in the end)
Hope that was clear... I'm not sure if anyone else would ever try this, cheap but fabrication-requiring, way to a winch mount but I'm pretty dam happy with it.
Could someone who knows alot about torquing bolts tell me what sort of torque I should put on the bolts that hold this thing on?
Here some pics of how it looks with the bumper on.
