Bumper Mounting Question

[yj-mike]

I am finishing up my front bumper, and I have a question on mounting:

In this photo it is bolted to the frame with 4 1/2-13 Grade 8 bolts and lock washers, and will have red Loc-Tite on final assembly. I am thinking about welding a vertical piece to the winch plate on either side of both frame rails and putting a bolt through horizontally as well. If I do this, I would sleeve the holes in the frame to prevent crushing the frame rails.

Is this necessary, or overkill?

Thanks

 

[NomadJeep]

My Warn bumper uses the 2 top bolts, and the one bottom bolt, and my Warn 9.5ti has not pulled off or loosened yet.  Dont forget, most winches only use 4 bolts, that are pretty small to attach the winch to the plate.  My Warn uses 4, 3/8 bolts torqued to 35 ft. lbs.  (9500 winch)  That is all that holds it to the Jeep.

 

[beaker]

I agree with damon, (4) 1/2" bolts will hold a lot of weight.  You can lift an engine with only ~(2) 1/4" bolts. 

At the most, I'd maybe add two bolts (one per side) on the top behind the existing bolts.

You can put bolts within 1 bolt diameter of the edge and still maintain full strength.  In jet engines we go much less, but one diameter is usually very safe.

 

[yj-mike]

Thanks for the comments, and I agree that the 4 bolts are more than enough, but I had some extra 1/4" plate and decided to do some welding.

One of the bottom mounting point nuts welded inside the frame is missing, and I would have to build up the bottom of the bumper so that it is flush with the bottom of the frame. Then I would have to weld on a tab.

I decided that was too much work, and went ahead and welded tabs on either side of each frame rail and will run a bolt horizontally as mentioned above through an existing hole in each frame rail.