Front bumper frame mount cracked (1 Viewer)

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That's a very cool solution. Creative engineering! I built a hidden winch mount for my 5th gen 4R from scratch with no plans because it was new and there weren't aftermarket options yet. It has similar frame horns (probably lighter gauge metal?) so I made a plate type bracket that ties back to the side of the frame rail like many aftermarket ones do now. When I'm fabbing in sheet metal I tend to force everything into my procrustean bed of being some version of cut and formed steel sheet rather than thinking more broadly about other designs. This solution is better in its simplicity. Love seeing this kind of stuff.

Agreed this is a great way to reinforce the horns. Got any pics of the plate type reinforcement brackets?

I likewise have a home brewed HWM. It probably doesn't put even a 1/4 of the stress larger bumpers do. The cyclic stress is probably what kills these frame horns rather than recovery related forces. Though that begs the question to know when the horn is compromised and a recovery load shouldn't be put through these bumpers/horns. For that reason, I think the factory lower tie down/recovery points are still key to use in a recovery, maybe with a snatch block, to better distribute forces.
 
Drilling the hole is the easy part. The issue I believe is that part of the mount will be in the way.
Oh. I didn’t think about that!

I may pull the shell later in the summer to see what we’re up against.
 
I had someone run a weld all the way around my mounts before I had my winch bumper installed. The factory welds looked fine but they have gaps. The welder also added gussets to the outside though I’m not sure that adds much in this case. I’ve run 100k miles with a lot of pothole-ridden city and some off-road trails, but my experience is anecdotal

I’d bought some aluminum bar and was planning to make that extra support but hadn’t gotten around to it. I may splurge on a pair once I have my truck back if measuring shows they’ll fit cleanly. I’m not positive they’ll prevent cracking but the definitely would act as a failsafe to keep from running over the bumper if the mount gave way
 
Agreed this is a great way to reinforce the horns. Got any pics of the plate type reinforcement brackets?

I likewise have a home brewed HWM. It probably doesn't put even a 1/4 of the stress larger bumpers do. The cyclic stress is probably what kills these frame horns rather than recovery related forces. Though that begs the question to know when the horn is compromised and a recovery load shouldn't be put through these bumpers/horns. For that reason, I think the factory lower tie down/recovery points are still key to use in a recovery, maybe with a snatch block, to better distribute forces.
I looked quickly and couldn't find a picture of that part. It's been about 10 years since then. But it's pretty similar to what ARB and some others do - just a piece of 1/4" plate that ties in to a couple OEM frame mount points. The 4Runner has IIRC 2 empty frame holes and one with a fairly decent size (10mm ?) weld nut inside that is unused on the frame horn. I found this image from unknown source, but it shows the easy place to tie an extra mount point to. I just used the one larger forward mount point plus the frame horn flange. The LC200 frame isn't as easy to find nice empty built in mount points. I wasn't event thinking about the fatigue failures - I was just a little worried about the tear out strength of the frame horn mounting flanges, but it probably helps with both.
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I'm not a big fan of these tow points - I think they're weaker than the OEM ones and I've shown some math on the tear out strength vs the OEM welded in ones, but that's another debate. It is a good visual to show where I tied in the winch mount.

The hardest part on the 4Runner is that stupid bumper "valance" overlay so there's the regular plastic bumper cover and then a second bumper cover over the first one that's about 20mm spaced out and it makes it hard to space the fairlead from the winch mount and get it all to fit correctly.

Didn't Toyota have an OEM mount for the LC200 at one point? For some reason I thought that was a thing.
 
Some specs of gulf region GRJ200 and UZJ200s had a factory electric winch assembly PN 38110-60291 but the mount wasn’t a separate part number. Google image search isn't helpful either.. not many examples of this. One that looks like it might work is actually a part number from a 100-series.

No clue whether a standard winch would mount into that frame. The diagrams suggest the stock winch may front-mount, if that says anything. But the cartoon-like quality is far from clear.

Edit: on second thought, the diagrams can be useful for this discussion. It appears the mount is attached to the factory recovery points.. but seems to wrap around the front of the frame. I'll do more digging to see whether the frame horns are different due to the lack of a crash bar or whatever.

Edit 2: it appears the frame is different on winch-mounted vehicles. They just don't have the flange that our stock crash bar and most aftermarket bumpers attach to. See the second image. The highlighted part is "not applicable", whereas looking up a US frame it is listed as a valid part. Also these vehicles didn't get a crash bar at all.. probably why it wasn't available in Australia where there would be a market for a winch, but I believe crash safety standards are higher than in Africa.

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