At the request of a few members, here's a summary of some of the mods I've made to my 2008 WK:
I wheel mainly in Colorado and Utah - I needed full rear bumper protection for my usual trails, so I designed and helped a friend of mine fabricate the protection, which includes space in the stock spare tire location for a 33" spare, covered by a custom skid plate...
Here's a shot of the (incomplete) structure, which is hidden by the bumper cover:
Here's a few shots of the finished project:
For the front, I really didn't want the weight and depth (length) of an ARB, but I wanted a steel bumper that was light weight, improved my approach angle (in front of the wheels anyway) and could house a winch. So, I went back to the drawing board (and back to Bob, my fabrication friend) and came up with this solution - we replaced the front crossmember with a universal winch mount, built a structure to hold 3/16" bumper endcaps (where I need the most protection for the trails I run) and I had a sheetmetal shop bend the center section out of relatively light 14 gauge metal...
I also had to replace the stock windshield washer reservoir, which is normally in front of the driver's wheel (a vulnerable place for trail use) to a nice void on the firewall:
The finished product (almost - after these pics were taken we tightened up the seams and fabbed up mounts for some Dodge Ram towhooks, which double as mini-skid plates):
I wheel mainly in Colorado and Utah - I needed full rear bumper protection for my usual trails, so I designed and helped a friend of mine fabricate the protection, which includes space in the stock spare tire location for a 33" spare, covered by a custom skid plate...
Here's a shot of the (incomplete) structure, which is hidden by the bumper cover:
Here's a few shots of the finished project:
For the front, I really didn't want the weight and depth (length) of an ARB, but I wanted a steel bumper that was light weight, improved my approach angle (in front of the wheels anyway) and could house a winch. So, I went back to the drawing board (and back to Bob, my fabrication friend) and came up with this solution - we replaced the front crossmember with a universal winch mount, built a structure to hold 3/16" bumper endcaps (where I need the most protection for the trails I run) and I had a sheetmetal shop bend the center section out of relatively light 14 gauge metal...
I also had to replace the stock windshield washer reservoir, which is normally in front of the driver's wheel (a vulnerable place for trail use) to a nice void on the firewall:
The finished product (almost - after these pics were taken we tightened up the seams and fabbed up mounts for some Dodge Ram towhooks, which double as mini-skid plates):