Couchsachraga
Active Member
- Joined
- Aug 12, 2018
- Messages
- 123
- Reaction score
- 78
On my last rig I had a warn XD9000 mounted up front. It was great to always have it there, but living in the northeast I've rebuilt it twice now over the past 12 years due to salt damage, so this time around I opted to use the existing hitches and a Warn winch cradle and run heavy duty leads (from Warn) to the front and rear. Mounted a solenoid right next to the battery box for a disconnect (no power to front and rear leads unless I flip the switch in the cab, which mounted on an existing stud in the footwell; out of sight for better or worse). I removed the grill to cut a 1"x2" slot in the "grill" (that is amusingly solid anyway) and bolted the front receptacle to one of the MANY holes in the bumper used to mount that part of the grill (why they felt the need for so many fasteners for such a small part I'll never know!). For the rear I fabricated a bracket that I could hose clamp to the hitch (bent a 1" strip of 3/16 stock I had lying around to a 1.5" radius (3" tube for the hitch) and cut a piece of 3/4" square tube in half (for two "U" shaped pieces) that I welded on to the bracket for the hose clamps to ride in. I painted it with bed liner and put a piece of closed sell foam between the bracket and hitch.
Other modifications include the front Curt hitch receiver (with spacers so it *should* work OK with the factory tow hitches. It's not perfect though.), ham radio (detailed elsewhere), dual racks (yakima on the roof, brackets for Thule sandwiched between the tonneau rail and bed (post elsewhere), and ran 110 in to the bed itself to run a National Luna freezer fridge we've had for 12 years or so, as well as charge an AGM battery the freezer fridge will run off of when the vehicle isn't running (switches from 110 AC to 12v DC if power is lost).
Front cutout, just to passengers side of license plate:
Yakima racks up top, expedition rack bolted to Thule load bars on back (roof top tent on the rack as we're headed out on a short trip this weekend)
Rear bracket. I used a large washer I had kicking around (clearly not new!) to hold the cap retaining strap.
I removed the lower plastic skirt from the front bumper (easy) and cut a hole for the CURT front hitch to poke through. The license plate covered it up partially so I trimmed the license plate retaining bracket and flipped it upside down. Eventually I may find a different bracket, but for now it works, and looked better than just bolting it to the bumper directly.
Other modifications include the front Curt hitch receiver (with spacers so it *should* work OK with the factory tow hitches. It's not perfect though.), ham radio (detailed elsewhere), dual racks (yakima on the roof, brackets for Thule sandwiched between the tonneau rail and bed (post elsewhere), and ran 110 in to the bed itself to run a National Luna freezer fridge we've had for 12 years or so, as well as charge an AGM battery the freezer fridge will run off of when the vehicle isn't running (switches from 110 AC to 12v DC if power is lost).
Front cutout, just to passengers side of license plate:
Yakima racks up top, expedition rack bolted to Thule load bars on back (roof top tent on the rack as we're headed out on a short trip this weekend)
Rear bracket. I used a large washer I had kicking around (clearly not new!) to hold the cap retaining strap.
I removed the lower plastic skirt from the front bumper (easy) and cut a hole for the CURT front hitch to poke through. The license plate covered it up partially so I trimmed the license plate retaining bracket and flipped it upside down. Eventually I may find a different bracket, but for now it works, and looked better than just bolting it to the bumper directly.
