Recovery Upgrades

Looking for some advise on what bumpers, winches, recovery equipment is recommended. I like the idea of lightweight bumpers. Anyone have experience with the Genright alum. front stubby Bumper, or Genright products in general. Also looking at the Warn 9.5cti . Any advise is welcome. TIA.

Bob

I am interested in the winch discussion as well. Hopefully that will be way down the road for me but you never know.

I have this guy:

http://truckandwinch.com/tuff-stuff-performance-12500-lb-wireless-winch.html

Although it looks like they've revised it or something. The electrics box on top looks higher quality. It's cheap and it's be excellent to me. You know that's true because I'm here to post this, not stuck somewhere in the woods. A winch is an obvious one. You will also want to be sure to use straps without hooks. Also known as a tree saver. In the event something breaks, a hook (or any weight on the end of the line) will become a lethal projectile. I have straps with hooks with me because the first time I got stuck I had to walk to the store and it's all they had. I keep them with me just in case I'm ever in need of a long distance winching. But that's a last resort. I also have a snatch block which I've yet to use. It came with my winch, but I haven't had a need for it yet. Rawhide gloves are handy to have for handling winch cable and avoiding getting jabbed by cotter pins/loose cable strands/etc. I have a ratchet strap (again for just in case, last resort purposes) and a come-along as well. Those don't really get used. A folding shovel is surprisingly handy. You can dig with it, obviously. But you can also fold it to 90*, lock it in and use it for chopping. My cousin taught me that trick, I thought it was pretty neat. I've also used it to stick under a wheel to give it something to bite into when mud was super slick. Although I wish I had the shovel when it came time to dig it back out after. I also have a hatchet, but that hasn't seen a lot of use. It's presently undergoing a restoration (I got bored).

As far as Jeep parts go, I haven't touched the bumpers yet. The front one is original and beat to crap. I've thought about ditching it and just using the winch plate and having the tow hooks up there. However, when you're under water and you need to get to the winch, you can walk down the slider, onto the fender and then the front bumper makes an awesome step. So I hesitate to just remove it. My rear bumper is just a couple pipes welded together. It was like that when I got it. While I know it's not ideal, it has worked for pulling her back out of the mud, no issue.

So, I hope that helps. I'm gonna keep my eye on this and hopefully learn some stuff. Good thread idea!

Nice write-up Rob thanks! So far I have acquired a couple of tow straps. The first one has the hooks. I bought it before I knew any better. That will get relegated to tree protection duty. The other one is only a 20' one but hopefully sufficient. I have put on a couple heavy duty 3/4" D-rings on the front and plan on getting a tow-hitch D-ring for the rear.

I picked up a well used Army issue folding shovel, some rope, utility blade, WD-40, a good hammer. Not all necessarily for recovery but they will stay in the Jeep. I need to pickup some good gloves.