Lots of times you can't just buy a winch mount for your early Jeep - especially if you've got a power steering box mounted on the framerail. But if you've got some tubing, a welder, and a little skill you can build one that'll work in no time.

I've used this design on a few Jeeps I've built and it's worked well. First, here's my '53 flattie's mount for its Ramsey 9500. The front and rear crossmembers are custom 0.120-wall rectangular and tubular steel. For the flattie, I went a bit overkill and sleeved some 1.5-inch, 0.120-wall into some 1.75-inch, 0.120-wall DOM. Granted, 1/4-inch wall is overkill, but it's been a comfort on gnarly winches like up Moab's Upper Helldorado waterfall and others. Instead of building a winch plate, I just pierced the tubing to run sections of heavy-wall tubing through. The photos are self-explainetory.

For my old CJ-6, Project Hatari!, I did something similar. I first welded in a 0.120-wall tube between the front framerails that would still allow the channel front bumper to mount up cleanly. Then I ran more 0.120-wall tubes from the stock crossmember and finished it off with a 1/4-inch plate drilled to accept the narrow Warn 6500 Short Drum Portable winch I used on that vehicle. Worked like a charm.