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Since Rough Country claims that the hidden winch kit doesn't work with the Capable bumper, I figured I would document my experience installing a Warn VR Evo 12-S using the Rough Country hidden mount kit on my Badlands, equipped with the Capable bumper. I also had to make some changes to other parts of the install to make everything work right on the 2.7 since the transmission cooler needs to be relocated.
Rough County isn't the highest quality stuff out there, but I don't know of anyone making a hidden winch setup for the 2.7 that's this clean looking and doesn't involve new bumpers, blocking the factory intercooler, etc. That being said, I had some small issues with the kit that needed addressing to make everything work correctly:
1) The relocation bracket for the transmission cooler interferes with the flaps/louvers behind the intercooler. It is my understanding that some Broncos do not have these louvers (earlier models I assume). I've seen people simply remove and discard these louvers/flaps, but that's a hack way of doing it in my opinion. The purpose of the flaps is to allow the radiator fan to pull air through the intercooler when the vehicle isn't moving fast enough to push air through and open the flaps. If you do choose to remove the louvers, there is a huge gap left in the bottom of radiator fan shroud. If you don't make a block-off for this gap, the fan can't effectively pull air through the radiator and condenser when the vehicle is still or at low speeds. This is certainly a bigger issue than just not pulling air though the intercooler (arguably the intercooler doesn't have a large heat load at low speed unless you using heavy throttle for some reason). Bottom line; you either have to move the transmission cooler so that the flaps still work as intended, or you need to fix the gap at the bottom of the radiator shroud after removing the louvers. I chose to modify the cooler further than what Rough Country has you do in their instructions, so that it can be mounted further back by about an inch, allowing the flaps to open.
2) None of the holes in the winch mount lined up with the holes in the frame where it mounts. I just had to dremel out the mount holes so that it would line up.
The only mod needed to make this kit work with the Capable bumper was to trim the lip on the front of the new skidplate so that it clears the bottom inside lip of the bumper (arguably this wasn't even needed, more on that later)
Here is the transmission cooler after the rear tabs are cut off per the kit instructions. I couldn't even mount it since the louvers are in the way, but just note the length of the front tabs.
This shows how much further back I moved the mount isolators before trimming the ends.
Here is the isolators removed and the extra length cut off. Basically just had to make new holes further back on the tabs for the isolators.
And here it is installed. I trimmed the RC mount by probably about 1.5" and drilled new holes. Note that there is now room for the flaps to operated as intended. This is as far back as I could move the cooler from where RC has you mount it. I ended up flipping the nuts to the top side since the bolts hit the winch when they're installed as shown.
Since the cooler is moved back from where it's supposed to be, I had to bend the cooler oil lines a bit so that the hoses had a decent bend radius and nothing would kink. Just minor tweaks needed but it's something to pay attention to.
Here are the holes that didn't line up (one side shown, the other side was the same). It wasn't a lot but enough that the bolts wouldn't go in.
Once all this is addressed, the next issue was the control box for the winch. Without the intercooler louvers (those damn things are in the way again), the control box can simply be shifted to the side similar to shown here. This isn't Rough Country's fault since they didn't design the kit for this winch but the Warns are popular for people to install anyways.
An additional issue with installing the control box there is that it's very difficult to connect the winch controller for a backup incase the wireless function for the remote fails. I ended up relocating the control box to a space under the airbox. I designed a mounting bracket in CAD and had it made. Worked perfectly.
These are views from the side and bottom (with the fender liner removed) of the control box mounted. I'll shift some things a tad and maybe change the design a bit if I do any more, but I'm super happy with it overall.
I had to make longer cables to connect the control box to the winch, but the power and ground cables that came with the winch were literally the perfect length to run to the battery. Here are the power cables ran to the battery, with the radiator fan shroud removed.
Here is a view of the control box with everything put back together. The second picture shows the controller cable plugged in. I didn't run a cable permanently since I'll just use the wireless function, and there's decent room for me to reach down and plug the cable in if I have a wireless failure.
I highlighted where the RC skid plate lip used to be. I cut the entire lip off since it was east to do a straight cut along the bend, but you could have left some lip if you wanted to. Earlier, I mentioned that cutting the lip may not have been needed. This is because the kit comes with spacers to push the bumper out. There's 2 spacer plates for each side, but with the lip cut I only needed one. It may be possible to not cut the lip if you use 2 spacers, but I can't confirm this as I didn't try it.
Here's the proof it works with this bumper. I installed a Factor 55 FlatLink instead of the hook since this picture was taken.
Rough County isn't the highest quality stuff out there, but I don't know of anyone making a hidden winch setup for the 2.7 that's this clean looking and doesn't involve new bumpers, blocking the factory intercooler, etc. That being said, I had some small issues with the kit that needed addressing to make everything work correctly:
1) The relocation bracket for the transmission cooler interferes with the flaps/louvers behind the intercooler. It is my understanding that some Broncos do not have these louvers (earlier models I assume). I've seen people simply remove and discard these louvers/flaps, but that's a hack way of doing it in my opinion. The purpose of the flaps is to allow the radiator fan to pull air through the intercooler when the vehicle isn't moving fast enough to push air through and open the flaps. If you do choose to remove the louvers, there is a huge gap left in the bottom of radiator fan shroud. If you don't make a block-off for this gap, the fan can't effectively pull air through the radiator and condenser when the vehicle is still or at low speeds. This is certainly a bigger issue than just not pulling air though the intercooler (arguably the intercooler doesn't have a large heat load at low speed unless you using heavy throttle for some reason). Bottom line; you either have to move the transmission cooler so that the flaps still work as intended, or you need to fix the gap at the bottom of the radiator shroud after removing the louvers. I chose to modify the cooler further than what Rough Country has you do in their instructions, so that it can be mounted further back by about an inch, allowing the flaps to open.
2) None of the holes in the winch mount lined up with the holes in the frame where it mounts. I just had to dremel out the mount holes so that it would line up.
The only mod needed to make this kit work with the Capable bumper was to trim the lip on the front of the new skidplate so that it clears the bottom inside lip of the bumper (arguably this wasn't even needed, more on that later)
Here is the transmission cooler after the rear tabs are cut off per the kit instructions. I couldn't even mount it since the louvers are in the way, but just note the length of the front tabs.
This shows how much further back I moved the mount isolators before trimming the ends.
Here is the isolators removed and the extra length cut off. Basically just had to make new holes further back on the tabs for the isolators.
And here it is installed. I trimmed the RC mount by probably about 1.5" and drilled new holes. Note that there is now room for the flaps to operated as intended. This is as far back as I could move the cooler from where RC has you mount it. I ended up flipping the nuts to the top side since the bolts hit the winch when they're installed as shown.
Since the cooler is moved back from where it's supposed to be, I had to bend the cooler oil lines a bit so that the hoses had a decent bend radius and nothing would kink. Just minor tweaks needed but it's something to pay attention to.
Here are the holes that didn't line up (one side shown, the other side was the same). It wasn't a lot but enough that the bolts wouldn't go in.
Once all this is addressed, the next issue was the control box for the winch. Without the intercooler louvers (those damn things are in the way again), the control box can simply be shifted to the side similar to shown here. This isn't Rough Country's fault since they didn't design the kit for this winch but the Warns are popular for people to install anyways.
An additional issue with installing the control box there is that it's very difficult to connect the winch controller for a backup incase the wireless function for the remote fails. I ended up relocating the control box to a space under the airbox. I designed a mounting bracket in CAD and had it made. Worked perfectly.
These are views from the side and bottom (with the fender liner removed) of the control box mounted. I'll shift some things a tad and maybe change the design a bit if I do any more, but I'm super happy with it overall.
I had to make longer cables to connect the control box to the winch, but the power and ground cables that came with the winch were literally the perfect length to run to the battery. Here are the power cables ran to the battery, with the radiator fan shroud removed.
Here is a view of the control box with everything put back together. The second picture shows the controller cable plugged in. I didn't run a cable permanently since I'll just use the wireless function, and there's decent room for me to reach down and plug the cable in if I have a wireless failure.
I highlighted where the RC skid plate lip used to be. I cut the entire lip off since it was east to do a straight cut along the bend, but you could have left some lip if you wanted to. Earlier, I mentioned that cutting the lip may not have been needed. This is because the kit comes with spacers to push the bumper out. There's 2 spacer plates for each side, but with the lip cut I only needed one. It may be possible to not cut the lip if you use 2 spacers, but I can't confirm this as I didn't try it.
Here's the proof it works with this bumper. I installed a Factor 55 FlatLink instead of the hook since this picture was taken.
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