Warn 9500i Winch Installation on Maximus-3 Winch Mount

Warn 9500i Winch Installation on Maximus-3 Winch Mount
Warn 9500i Winch Installation on Maximus-3 Winch Mount

installed-winch First and foremost, this page details some steps to get our Warn HS9500i to fit onto our Rubicon X. Most winches are not as large or as wide as the Warn HS9500i. Your best bet is to contact Maximus-3, tell them what winch you have or plan to buy, and let them help you. We were unsure and the guys at Maximus-3 were very helpful with a few things that we were going to have to deal with. The Maximus-3 Winch Mount fits most common winches in either a center mounting position or the offset position. Restrictions of space for a specific winch size are due to the available space on the Wrangler front end. The Maximus-3 design attempts to accommodate a variety of winches and installation options.

Our Warn HS9500i has been a great winch over the years. It’s been pushed hard many, many times. It’s helped us through hard mud extractions, including pulling out a backhoe from a swamp and pulling a Jeep with a blown engine up a long, rocky trail where we had to anchor the winching vehicle to trees just to get stable footing. It’s been one of the most dependable winches we have ever used. That being said it is BIG. We weren’t sure if it was going to fit on this Rubicon X. But somehow we got it to fit and fit well.

warn-9500i-winch-install Due to our winch width, we would have had a much easier install if we opted for the off-center mounting position. However we really wanted to center the winch for visual aesthetics and center the Hawse Fairlead. So after a little time measuring and test fitting, we came to the conclusion that we could center mount the HS9500i. After a couple of minor modifications to the bumper flange, shaving down the winches cooling fins and some minor trimming of the mounting holes on the mount, we were able to center mount our winch.

Again, these steps are only necessary to our earlier model Warn HS9500i and certainly not typical of a winch install on a Wrangler Rubicon. This is really only to document the fun we had shoehorning this massive winch into our Rubicon X. We rarely decline a challenge!

 
 

We will finish up the wiring of the Winch a little later in the project. First we want to continue with Mounting the Maximus-3 D-Ring Loops

 

Our next step involved installing the Maximus-3 D-Ring Loops. These D-Ring Loops use the same bolts that mount the winch to the Maximus-3 Winch Mount making the install fairly easy.

In the next section we install the Maximus-3 D-Ring Loops. Because the D-Ring Loops are sold as a separate product from the Winch Mount, Maximus-3 provided separate but overlapping instructions for the D-Ring Loops. However, doing the install during the Winch Mount installation is quite simple and only added a few extra steps to a fairly easy project.

Go to the D-Ring Loops

 
Maximus-3