Hydraulic 12v Ind (101255)

This kit had a few problems that required a few trips to the hardware store to fully install. The bolts that held my skid plate brackets to the frame were too short too catch any threads with the provided L brackets stacked on them and Warn did not provide any longer ones. Also, since the fairlead needs to go through a plate in front of the bumper, the bumper and also the mounting bracket the standard supplied fairlead bolts provided with my Warn EVO 12 did no fit either as they were too short.

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Everything fit well with a WARN VS EVO 12-S winch. Only two things gave me slight pause:1) One bracket's mounting bolt heads came very close to the sway bar release mechanism but I think it'll work, 2) The bolts which hold the fairlead in place were a bit too short to get the nut started. I made a trip to get longer (hardened & black instead of gray/silver) bolts. If you can draw up the layers of brackets and fairlead the bolts provided are plenty long enough. In my situation I couldn't draw them up.Pay attention to the mounting instructions in special regard to the fog light wiring harness and drop the wire down out of the way. (It could have been the reason I couldn't get the bolts started. :)It took 4 hours at a no hurry pace and that includes wiring, a half hour trip to get the bolts and taking the bumper back off to get the fog light wire out of the way.

This is a sturdy mount, well built and packagedl. With this winch plate, I mounted a HF Badlands Apex 12k winch on my Gladiator, with no problems. For my application, I had to buy longer bolts for the fairlead, I went with a 55mm length from Fastenal.Installation Tips for a Jeep Gladiator:- You will need to lengthen the two holes at the rear of the skid plate. Slot these two holes going towards the rear of the vehicle by approximately 3/8"". Do this first.- Do the ""Jeep grill mod"" once you have the bumper off, before installing anything. Consists of removing the grill (very easy, check YouTube), removing the 4 bottom inner retainer clips, but leaving the two outer clips on the bottom of the grill. This allows you to remove the grill in the future without removing the winch. Pop each side out, pull up to remove after the mod.- Leave the grill off until the winch is installed, this prevents scratching it up and allows easier routing of the wiring. It's easy to install once the winch is mounted.- For the Badlands Apex winch, move the positive winch wire that comes out the side of the winch towards the grill. Drill a 3/4"" hole in the ""electrical box"" on the left-hand side, above the motor connections. Re-route the positive lead to come straight out the left-hand side of the winch. Google Apex winch wiring mod. It's not hard to do. The positive cable will press up against the grill if you don't do this. The electrical box is not waterproof anyway.- There are two brackets on the winch plate that get installed to the Gladiator frame, leave all the bolts loose until after the bumper is fully tightened, before the winch is bolted to the Warn plate.- Use a piece of tape to hold the (4) mounting nuts at the bottom of the winch, these are the winch to Warn plate bolts. Do not bolt the winch down to the Warn plate until the bumper retaining buts are ALL completely tightened. This allows you to move the winch from side to side so you can access the hard to reach inner bumper mounting nuts.- Once the bumper is properly fastened, then you can tighten down the fairlead bolts, and then the winch plate bracket bolts.- There is a spot next to the battery that you can mount the switch that comes with the Apex winch. A sturdy piece of aluminum works well. Remove the factory bolt for the fender on the edge, there is another threaded hole approximately 3-4"" towards the front of the vehicle. Obtain a bolt to use, mount your bracket for the switch here.Overall, the installation took me 3 hours, it was not bad at all. Everything lined up nicely. Since I did the above steps before starting it went quickly. Concerning mounting the winch to the Warn plate, The tape holds the nuts, but they will move a little, use a small piece of stiff wire to ""align"" the nuts with the holes in the winch plate.