ok so i'm getting ready to throw a winch into my T17. i had heard somewhere that i may need a winch frame [TJM sells for their alloy bars and some steels ones]. has anyone with a T17 done anything to beef it up for a winch? i have a hard time believing that the face of the bumper is going to hold the load of a winch with out tweaking a little? does anyone have a picture of a TJM winch frame?

thanks for any incite

FYI this comes about after a very long night of wheeling the piss out of the first snow here in washington and dragging my friends '79 460 powered bronco out of to many holes....

 

I don't think you need to modify the bumper any but I would recommend beefing up the mounting points on the frame. Front range makes a kit for it: Severe Use front Frame Brace

The reason I say this is the first time I used my winch it tweaked that area on my truck. The bumper seemed to hold up fine but the mounting points were pulled forward. I'm getting ready to pull it all off and reinforce everything. Here are some pics from re-spooling it the other day:

 

we beefed up the sub frame alot, add some recovery points, i think it should hold up ok, since i have SFA the spring hanger adds some beef to the truck's frame but also eleminated the lower mounting points so those were fabbed in...

do you notice the winch pulling the bumper out of alignment with the body? or does torquing them way down do alright?

 

It's tweaked a little. The thing is I had a stripped bolt and didn't realize it till I used the winch and it pulled out, tweaking the bumper. Also, I kinda inadvertently rammed a tree trying an obstacle so that didn't help it any . I think with all the bolts good and in place movement should be minimal.