Winch bumper for the Eagle

[Eaglefreek]

Ever since I built the rear bumper with tire carrier, I've wanted to build a front bumper. Well, I finally made the time to do it. It took a few days but got it done. I didn't take many pics of the build like I did with the rear bumper so I can't go in as much detail.
I started with a piece of 1/4" steel that I had made for the winch. I believe it was 8"x 33 1/2" and a 4"x 33 1/2" piece
welded to make an L. I then took 2 24" pieces of 3/8x5" flat stock that I made the frame mounts out of. I removed the bumper brackets and installed the 3/8" steel to the unibody using one of the bumper bracket bolt holes, a steering box bolt on one side and idler arm bolt on the other side. I also added 2 more 1/2" bolts that I drilled through the frame and sleeved. I bought premade recovery points that are made out of 3/4" stock. The rest is 1/8" steel. The winch is a 9,000 lb Harbor Freight Road Shock that I got in a trade. I am going to upgrade to a Warn some day in the future.
I had to notch a little bit of the front valance for the mounts.

Here's my 79 year old uncle stick welding the 1/4" winch plate to the 3/8" mounts. All I have is a 120v welder and wanted to make sure the critical stuff was done right.

Here is the only place I ran into trouble. The steel moved during welding. I guess I got too much heat in that area. I will have to figure out how to fix it.

 

[Hill Bill E.]

Looks great! I've always like the Eagles, they are cool rigs.

 

[corax]

Sweet bumper, glad your uncle got to have a hand in it!

 

[RU55ELL]

Wow, that turned out looking very nice!

 

[RealJon]

That looks amazing, great job! It really adds to the car and makes it look that much tougher!

 

[Eaglefreek]

Thanks for the compliments. It was my second fabrication project after buying a welder on Ebay. Here's the rear bumper in case some haven't seen it before. Yesterday I lowered the tire about 3" since taking this picture.

 

[Revco]

That looks really good. I always thought the Eagles were cool.

 

[Mark Harley]

WOW! That little Eagle looks great!
I was always a sucker for wagons, The bumper tucks nice to the body Well executed!
I like the jeep? wheels you chose too! Nice vehicle.

 

[Idlehour]

Awesome fab work! That is a sweet eagle.

 

[Hilldweller]

That is so cool; I can't wait to see it next week.

 

[Eaglefreek]

WOW! That little Eagle looks great!
I was always a sucker for wagons, The bumper tucks nice to the body Well executed!
I like the jeep? wheels you chose too! Nice vehicle.

Thanks for the compliments, everyone. Yes those are Jeep Grizzlys. I scored them on Craigslist for $40. I've been trying to find a good set of the old Cherokee 10 spokes though.

That is so cool; I can't wait to see it next week.

Same here. Can't wait for CFW.

Today I took some time to fix the right side of the bumper. IT WAS BUGGING ME!

Before:

I cut it right at the corner and then raised it up with my hydraulic jack:

I cut a piece of steel to fit in the gap:

After welding and grinding:

A little dab of body filler and some sanding and painting and it is fixed:

 

[Stumpalump]

Nice compliment to a cool vehicle.

 

[Hilldweller]

Baddest-******** Eagle ever.

 

[Eaglefreek]

Baddest-******** Eagle ever.

I appreciate the compliment Bill, but there are quite a few cool Eagles out there. Here are a few:
I would need to do a solid front axle swap to be "serious".
Here are a couple wagons.

There are some really cool SX4's also.

This one is currently going through an electric motor conversion:

Here's an Eagle Kammback:

 

[19psi]

Neat stuff!