Think the Warn Zeon 10-S winch would fit in this spot?

So my VKSV3 bumper does not provide for much winch room.. below is a picture of the older version of a Smittybilt X2O 10k winch (22.3 inch x 5.4 inch x 9.4in). I am looking at getting the Warn Zeon 10-S winch (24.25 in. x 7.15 in. x 10.52in) and putting it in the same spot but I am not sure if it would fit.. It appears about an inch wider but I am not sure where the width exactly is.. anyone have experience with both winches and have an educated guess?

IMO, it will be very tight. We put a Zeon on my wife's with an LOD bumper and it barely fits. Click link below for pics.

https://wayalife.com/showthread.php?39994-Building-Apocalypse&p=886264&viewfull=1#post886264


If you can, measure between the front bumper edge of the winch cavity and the grill, I can go measure ours and let you know. Measure between the yellow lines in pic below. I know it won't be fully accurate as it looks like your grill is already bent inward.



EDIT: Just went out and measured. You will likely need 8 inches between grill and front part of winch cavity to make this work:





It looks like the top of the control box on ours is an inch away from the grill though:

I appreciate the measurements! I am not home right now but definitely will have to measure that when I get home. Unfortunately you are correct, I had to remove the brackets behind the grille just so the smittybilt winch could squish the grill against that bar behind the grille.. so no more wiggle room that way, only have that small portion in front of my current winch to work with. Ill just have to measure and see if it fits!

It appears the winch cavity is only 6 inches wide.. so that definitely won't work. I wonder If I removed the grille if it would allow me more space or if that bar behind the grille would get in the way.. I might be willing to cut a section out of the grille down there to make the winch fit.. I wonder how off/weird that would look.

A lot of bumpers come with spacer plates for in between the bumper and frame horns. Why not just space the bumper out far enough to get the winch in?


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AdventuresWithReid said:

It appears the winch cavity is only 6 inches wide.. so that definitely won't work. I wonder If I removed the grille if it would allow me more space or if that bar behind the grille would get in the way.. I might be willing to cut a section out of the grille down there to make the winch fit.. I wonder how off/weird that would look.

Click to expand...

I wouldn't cut the grill! I would make spacers to go between the frame horns and bumper to give you the space you need in front of the grill. Then modify the backside of the bumper to accommodate the winch.

Edit: Just like Judeside said!

If you're set on that winch, you may be able to do some custom work to make it fit. What's the distance from the winch mounting plate on the bottom to the bottom of the grill? If the widest part of the winch is below that, it may fit. I took some more pics, I get 7.25 total width, which is right about where warn says it is. So if the winch body is below the grill, you may be fine. Only other issue would be where the front of the winch sits. I assume the center of the winch to the front is half of the total width.

I appreciate the help.. hopefully these pictures help explain the situation, let me know if you want a specific one and i can go snag another photo. Unfortunately it is dark so these are best I can do. It appears about 5 inches from the winch plate to the bottom of that bar.. as you can see, the grille is literally pinched between my current winch and the bar so basically the limiting factor is that bar and not so much the grille. Like I said above, I removed all the brackets on the grille so its just pinched in there. I removed my grille for these measurements and honestly am wondering if I will be able to get the grille back on :thinking:

Also, I am not 100% set on that specific winch.. I am more wanting to switch to a more reliable winch, money not being a limiting factor now.

It appears my best bet is probably going to be the Warn Zeon 12-S, as for some reason that is showing a skinnier body than the Zeon 10-S. According to Warn's website, it is the "integrated configuration" for the Zeon 12-S are 24.25 x 6.09 x 7.15" tall. That is about 1/2 an inch wider which should be able to fit in there. I also could mount the control box that sits on top elsewhere to make the winch smaller if that would help at all. It depends what they mean by integrated configuration vs. their other dimensions shown which is labeled "low-profile configuration"

As far as pushing the bumper further out.. the issue is there isn't anything really left to push it out onto. I cut the frame back a little further than I should have in the beginning which is why I'm running into issues with this.. although I still probably would run into the same issue. I ended up welding a bit to get the bumper on but I could just cut that piece and possible move the bumper out a little bit.. I really only need like an inch to make it work. Might be worth it though..

Here is the frame that was left after I cut it, and as you can see the winch plate is all the way against the Jeep but still hanging off a small portion. What I could do is pull the winch plate out but as you can see in the picture, there would be more of a gap between the toe hook portion of the winch plate and the frame rails. As you can see with the holes I drilled for the two bumper bolts that go down into the rails, there isn't that much more room to move the bumper forward. I could place a hole between the most forward hole in the picture below and the most forward part of the frame rail and that would give me a tiny bit more room I suppose..