Hey guys I put on my ARB Winch bumper today here are some pics:






And the bracket to bring it up to the right height:


Now I need to make something to get the strength that it needs to winch.....
And a winch

Looks good Ed Was it fairly easy to install? How much beefing up will it need to winch? I thought that the ARB bumpers came with hardware to make it strong enough :-/
Zig

I think he's refering to the 'lift' of the bumper to mate to the body lift of the Vitara.
Only suggestions I have for strengthening is to make the bracket into as many planes as possible with triangulation mounting. The front of the frame horn (in the last picture) shows he has room for a dual plane mount and to add a crossmember. Where the red plate mounts is the Z-plane. The front face where you can press you hand on is the X-plane. Adding a 90* bracket here with additional torsional support through a crossmember to the other side of the frame in the same location would suffice the angular pull on the frame. The X-plane will keep the shear force from the Z-plane. If he could add a Y-plane, that would double the shear strength all together. By adding the X-plane support (compression/tension module), it adds strength to the shear strength of the mount, but is only limited to the strength of the plate it's mounted to.
What would also help is to gain bolt size diameter 1-2 sizes bigger, add a backing plate for the front brackets, and having 3-4 bolts for each plane. 3 is better, 4 is best. The 2 in the picture only support minimal forces.

Hey Jagular,

I think I do understand a little bit of your explanation... but maybe you could make it a little bit more clear, with a drawing or something?? please.
I'll try to make some drawing when I'm home about what I had in mind.
Thanks for the advice allready.

How about this. It should be almost as effective as mounting directly to the frame :-/

Zig

stylin bro

Maybe a combination of Zig's idea and the original...:



Like this, pink is Zig's tube welded to the frame, Red is the original Tube to wich the bumper mounts and green will be a new tube... to mount it to in the original way??? Maybe the pic is a little big, sorry for that.
CU  

Basically that's the idea. You will have strengthen the front frame horn to handle the pulling of the vehicle in the 2-plane design. The 3rd plane would be on the bottom of the frame. Take your right hand, point finger and thumb like a gun. The take your middle finger and have it come out of the fist perpendicular to the index finger. These are the 3 planes.

hi guys, I use the Calmini winch bumper and brackets, Whilst winching the top bolts sheered straight off . But the bottom part held as its fixed to my skidplate enough for me to winch back down the hill

I wouldnt trust your stock bolts on those top mounts , I had to go home get out some thick plate and I basically plated the crumple zone to strngthen that part on the front part of the chassie.

Lucky enough the calmini bumper has big bolts that attach the bumper so I then welded the mount all the way around and added some extra plates .

I will take some pictures if you are interested as when you look underneath it looks pretty tidy, I run a 12.500lbs winch for the winch challenges and it holds up fine but i would advise caution with those small stock bolts

Basically that's the idea. You will have strengthen the front frame horn to handle the pulling of the vehicle in the 2-plane design. The 3rd plane would be on the bottom of the frame. Take your right hand, point finger and thumb like a gun. The take your middle finger and have it come out of the fist perpendicular to the index finger. These are the 3 planes.

Do you mean something like this:



The winch bumper bolts on using 3 off 8.8 grade M12 nuts and bolts on each mounting. Much stronger than the stock 2 off M8 bolts that only go into one side of the chassis rail.

Hey Mbmarkyb,
If you'd take some pictures that would help, the more idea's the better the solution.

Rhinoman, I like that idea too, but that's without a body-lift right?

Hey Mbmarkyb,
If you'd take some pictures that would help, the more idea's the better the solution.

Rhinoman, I like that idea too, but that's without a body-lift right?

yep, you could do something similar but extended a bit higher for a bodylift. When I fitted the body lift I just used some steel plates to raise the mounts. The plates are heavy duty and its still solid in all directions. If you're going to be winching I think you need something stronger than the original mounting points. Mark's experience proves that, thats one reason I didn't buy the Calmini bumper myself, also it was twice the price of having a better one custom made.