4th gen Custom winch bumper and other goodies.

[Denker2005]

As we all know aftermarket support for 4th gens is next to nothing, but since fighting this problem, I personally have come up with my own answers to the problems ford has created. Most notably, I wanted to fit a winch in the front of my vehicle while maintaining approach angle and hood looks. After finding someone to fabricate a rear tire carrier for me, I began understanding the world of custom fabrication. I reached out to many different shops for quotes and settled on a semi retired guy here in idaho who was up for the task of building me a custom steel winch bumper. I basically gave him full artistic reign with it, and I trusted him. I can’t say how he did it is exactly how I would do it, but I kinda love it anyway. The winch I stuffed in there is a Smittybuilt gen 3 XT0 12k (on sale for around $600) and should me more than I will ever need. For the custom fab work we agreed on $1500 for him to take it all apart, and build it all back up in steel. Here are some photos of my rig before tearing the front end apart, and also some photos of the bumper being built. Photos of it being painted and 100% done will be later once I actually paint it.

 

[Denker2005]

Just got these back from the fabricator. Cant wait to take it out and test it.

 

[94Fexplorerxlt]

This is awesome , you should replace the grille with a black one and get the smoked headlights

 

[Travis Brown]

This bumper looks great! I want to see more pics of the finished bumper from different angles. How is it attached to the frame? Is it welded?

 

[Denker2005]

Yeah, The bumper is really two pieces, there is a winch plate that is welded to the frame rails and gusseted all over, and this is the structure for the bumper, then I have the big face plate. the face plate bolts on along with the skid plate, and is more of a visual piece, along with being very high clearance. of course it looks great and is super sturdy, but the capabilities of the explorer itself still hinder its abilities more than anything. photo below is when I took out the winch to fix the primary solenoids.