Lights & Winch on Superu

[Superu]

It may not be the prettiest you've ever seen, but form needs to follow funtion in this case! And it's surprisingly stable on the road (lightbar that is) considering the uniqueness of the mounting. If necessity is the mother of invention, then I must be invention's crazy-ass half/brother! :exclaim:

2" FRH mounted below front bumper with 6"x3/4" Grade 8 bolts. Welded cross members to follow before the winch is put to use!

Fully loaded. There is barely a drop in the attitude of the nose thanks to the lift springs from King Springs!

Here she is with the winch safely stowed.

On a side note, I love my new shift knob! Arizona river rock with a gecko to boot!

Shot from the other side.

 

[HenryJ]

I like it!

 

[p1michaud]

Pulling and seeing power.

Very unique build. I like it!

 

[jim65wagon]

Nice! It'll fit right in with the next East Coast meet!

 

[adventureduo]

Im lovin your build man. What do other Subaru owners think of it?

 

[MountainBiker]

Im lovin your build man. What do other Subaru owners think of it?

Hitch mounting is very clean, and it is awesome that the winch is removable! You can place in the front or back, whichever is needed!

My Forester only has 900 lbs of cargo capacity (including people), so I really try to travel light. I do carry a Black Rat tirfor style hand winch though.

 

[MountainBiker]

Just wanted to elaborate on your question in the other thread regarding bumper mount reinforcement. You might know most of this, but to summarize: the Subaru Unibody is made up of stamped sheet metal, with mostly just spotwelds holding the pieces together. To make some regions stronger, extra layers of metal might be added. The typical parts that get damaged in a crash are available from Subaru. You might be able to find some sheet metal parts that could be added for reinforcement.

At any rate, unless you can find a frame & body shop that is willing to help you out (not worried about liability), you are probably on your own as far as reinforcing the unibody. Hopefully there are less lawyers out there than in California!

In case you didn't know, you can access the Subaru parts diagrams here:
https://www.subarugenuineparts.com/oe_parts_cat.html
Poke around a bit, and you can find the frame pieces I'm talking about. For my Forester, they were buried under the "Fender" tab in the menu.

 

[MountainBiker]

You should contact member Scooby over at www.OffroadSubarus.com. I'm pretty sure he did some reinforcements to his Outback to mount his tube type offroad front bumper.
http://offroadsubarus.com/index.php?option=com_forum&Itemid=46&page=profile&mode=viewprofile&u=121

 

[Superu]

Thanks for all the encouragement!

The rear diff skidplate arrived today from Paul @ Primitive Racing. Hope to find time this weekend to install it.

Looking forward to an East Coast meet!

Dave @ AuSubarus is working up the specs for the 2" lift so I'm hoping to have that by the end of Q4.