New Winch and bumper...

[SteveG]

After lots of deliberations, some may call it indecision! :roll: , I finally decided on getting a Superwinch EP9 and a bumper to go with it. Had a good look at bumpers and decided that I wanted a tubular one, without the A bar and after days of mindless research and after asking around I finally decided on a FirstFour bumper.

As they were near Tiverton and not a million miles away from a friend that was looking after a roof rack for me that I purchased from a dealer down there. So I decided to pick them up in person and at the same time pick up my roof rack and rope Tony into helping me with wiring and crimping!    

On the way down, I picked up a pair of HD 096 batteries from Mole Valley Farmers for 100 pounds the pair.


they are wired up in the "west country' way   in parallel. I did consider getting an Odyssey PC1200 in conjunction with the standard batt and an X-Charge, but this way saved me 80 pounds, and maybe a 100 if I sell the std batt for 20 quid    - offers via PM are accepted, it's a year old and 13,000 miles  

EP9 from FirstFour came with an HD isolator switch..


So finally here's the bumper..


I liked the low profile look of this set up..


The bumper is mounted with two vertical bolts through the existing mounts and one horizontal bolt, again through existing chassis hole..


Fit and finish is excellent and the SS fairlead is very bling..


Approach angle is good..


We took apart solenoid pack and relocated Albright equiv sealed solenoid onto the passenger side inner wing. I forgot the flex to wire up my in cab control switch .The remote socket was placed underneath the Passenger side indicator...



So, I'm very pleased with purchase. Peter at First Four seems a nice chap, very easy to deal and communication via e-mail and phone was very good and prompt. Only problem we had was that the thread on one of the vertical bolt plates stripped with little effort. Not an issue as we just used std LR plates, but I suspect plates need to be more heavy duty. Price for bumper, EP9 without fairlead rollers and wire rope, 2x SS swivel eyes and the SS hawse fairlead was 725 pounds, so a very good deal too.

Here's a couple of more pics for any people with winch/bumper fetish  

Cheers

Steve







Just need to get the roof roack off now! :roll:

[dew1911]

What about the Front Number Plate?

Other than that it looks the dogs danglies mate.

[Nick666]

Very nice indeed... got the Shadow bumper but with the A-bar bit myself, probably go for an EP9 like you have as well, but it's awaiting more funds ;) Reckon it's the best made thing I've bought for my 110 so far, and for once it came with all the fixings required!

Re the bracket, I'd have thought he'd probably send you another one if you ask... worth a try anyway, but if you're happy with the LR one then might as well stick with that :)

As for the licence plate, I've got brackets that came with mine to fix the licence plate on through the fairlead bolts (at least I assume that's how it's supposed to go, seems to work for mine), but it'd be in front of your radiator. Will post a pic.

[SteveG]

Bumper did come with number plate brackets, but I'm going to get a stick on one and put it on the bonnet - naughty me :oops:

I'll leave the number plate on dash until sticky one arrives.

Cheers

Steve

[davidlandy]

looks a tidy job Steve

do you have an underbonnet shot of the solenoid?  and the cabling to and from it?

[SteveG]

Hi Dave

No I haven't. I've got to take off the headlight surround and headlight again though to wire up in cab switch so I'll take some pics then.

Pretty simple really. Just earthed solenoid to inner wing bolt, positive for solenoid from positive feed from battery and three winch motor control cables feed to respective poles on solenoid. Earth on winch motor was taken back directly to battery.

Cheers

Steve

[V8MoneyPit]

Very neat installation. One thing.... I take it you can lift and turn the clutch knob in that small grille cutout?

[SteveG]

As you can see in second to last pic the freespool lever sits proud of the grill so it's easy to pull up and turn :) Even a very dumb ham-fisted winch biatch wearing gloves could do it!  

Cheers

Steve