I am going to start and maintain a thread throughout what looks to be a multi-week install (a few hours per day). I will leave my comments and try to limit them to educational points, unless it is clear I need to state something conclusive about a point.

Day 1:

I am limiting my work time to 15 minutes at a time, so as not to become impatient while removing the plastic body work. It is certainly necessary to have a modern auto trim removal kit. I bought one for $20 from Amazon.

I am using the PowerfulUK video for the front grille removal guidelines:


End of day 1 photos are attached -- no great learnings, other than BE PATIENT. Removing the plastic body parts is very trying. I used the plastic tools and very slowly did ok.

 

Day 2:

I used the Powerful UK video on how to remove the front bumper:


Four critical points:

1. Do NOT begin the removal without watching the video, in its entirety, first. Three things to look for: a. removal force with the plastic tools should be as light as possible. Even so, it is more force than one would expect. Follow the tire change on a bicycle two-tool technique with the plastic sticks -- it is slow, but will save most of the clips. b. you do not need to remove but just the very front bottom of the wheel arch trim. c. the DEMON screw referred to at the end of the video is not in the instructions and is, I think, only existent on Defenders without a secondary radiator on a side. I believe the screw bolts the bumper to a bracket which only is used when a secondary radiator is not present.

2. When removing the last of the four bolts which hold on the bumper, down underneath, it helps to have the vehicle on blocks, as well has having the suspension lifted. As well, it is true the bumper will fall onto your head when three of four bolts are removed. Better to have someone help, at that point. Lesson learned.

3. The wiring harnesses (looms) are not user friendly. Lots of patience and the application of just enough force made the day successful. But, it's no picnic.

4. Accessing the recovery tow point on the stock vehicle is entirely TOO difficult. I would not enjoy doing it in the field in a real situation. Also, the force necessary to remove the top 8 clips is excessive. Either cut a hole in the plastic (as one on this site did) or install the front undercover. The vehicle should not be taken any place where recovery might be necessary, otherwise. JLR really whiffed on this one, I think -- or is it undeniable evidence they do not expect a marked quantity of these vehicles to go off-road directly from the showroom and they reduced cost accordingly, while achieving a cleaner look.

MORE to come ......

 

Day 3 - Good starting point

I went ahead and pulled out the brake ducts and the Coolant protection frame, following the undertray instructions and video ... wrenches and bolts, much more relaxing than plastic and wires.

This is as far as I could go on the undertray instructions -- starting the winch instructions tomorrow -- have to begin pulling out the stuff in front of the radiator.



Day 3 Starting point

 

The end of Day 3 coincided with the end of the first of five videos from Powerfuluk.com on the winch installation. The day consisted of removing the four layers of plastic and metal structure which lay beneath the outer grill and bumper. I will make a comment or two on this layering complexity on my Day 4 post.

All went very smoothly, excepting the last 10 minutes -- those expected to be used freeing the armature (which most would call a metal bumper structure) from the vehicle. The 10 minutes actually stretched to 90 minutes, as the approach recommended in the video did not work for a Defender with two auxiliary radiators.

Instead, I had to access and remove the two 10 MM vertical bolts on each side which held the armature to the 1 inch square by 4 inches long small box beam which is integrated into the joint connecting the armature to the primary longitudinal structure of the vehicle. This was in addition to the two horizontal 10 MM vertical bolts supporting that same joint (the ones removed in the video) . To remove the vertical bolts, I had to free the coolant reservoir from its moorings on the left side of the vehicle, and four wiring harnesses on the other side. This took an unexpected hour to accomplish.

The reason for the unexpected work was called out in the last few minutes of video one, but not fully shown. The small box beam on each side holds a 10 MM stud, hidden behind, to which is attached the plastic frame which holds in the place the auxiliary radiator on each side. The video said the stud nut needed to be removed, in order it turns out to avoid removing the vertical bolts I just referred to.

In actuality, I ended up having to loosen the stud bolt, remove the vertical bolts and remove the horizontal bolts --- all connected to these two small box beams. The box beams remain in the vehicle, hanging by the stud bolts, with the armature removed and video 1 completed.

I am going to spend Day 4 looking at the future videos and the winch installation instructions, along with the winch tray, which just arrived from California this afternoon, to assess if I am ready to begin the installation build up or not.

Two comments:

1. I have made sure to place each bolt back into the hole it came from as I went along. This is really helping, as after several days of this puzzle work, I am already forgetting what goes where. Having the attachment points marked will also help in trying to copy the Lucky8 clean look of an accessible winch.

2. It is pretty clear that enabling cooling capacity for the 4, 6, 8 cylinder motors, in a manner which is environmentally optimum (which requires tight temperature control of the motor), for use in all global environments, while presenting a sleek front of the vehicle, was quite a stretch for the Defender design team. During Day 4, I will take and post some photos regarding the complexity of the cooling challenge --- and will ask for your help on one small item.

 

Man, I don’t envy you that job. Seems like I spent about 3-hours each time I put a Warn on the front of my own or a friend’s JK Wrangler, either on OEM or aftermarket bumpers.

In my early days of offroading when I was learning the lines and learning what my Jeep could walk out of and what it couldn’t, I used my winch 4-5 times a year. But the last time I winched because my Jeep was stuck was 2017, and ironically, I had to use my hitch-mount winch to pull backwards.

I think on the 110 I’m going to forgo the permanent winch altogether and just carry along the small 4000# hitch winch I have. I can shackle the tray to the front tow rings if I need a front pull, or just insert it into the hitch receiver for a back pull as needed, and not go through all of this trouble and expense.

Of course, having a synthetic line extend out of your front bumper with a shackle on the end certainly looks a lot better!

 

The difficulty of the Winch tray installation is that it requires clear access to the outer, rear of the crush cans --- the point where the original armature (bumper crash beam) bolts into the longitudinal structural members of the vehicle.

I did not remove the headlights, because the directions to do so would be in the workshop directions for the removal of the armature, which I did not have, and which because doing so was not specifically called out in the PowerfulUK video. And because I was too stubborn and did not desire to mess with the lights. (The problem is they are not just headlamps -- they are a big transformer type box.)

So, my arms and hands were fighting for space with the two auxillary radiators and their duct work and with the tight-fitting body shape of the fenders for several hours -- and which requires lots of wiring and the radiator reservoir to be moved to have any chance of success. Which took unnecessary time. And the radiators are connected to the critical 1 inch square by 5 inches long box beam with the single 10 mm stud described earlier.

I have small hands and arms and so with a lot of contusions and effort I completed the work. But, for larger person the message is clear -- REMOVE THE HEADLIGHTS UP-FRONT AT THE BEGINNING. Powerful UK has a video to do so. It is on the same video as the grill removal.

My other learning is that ANY PURCHASE OF AN AFTER MARKET WINCH TRAY OR UNDER SHIELD MUST BE EXAMINED VERY CLOSELY BEFORE DOING SO. Both the Winch tray and the under shield appear to be very critical, highly engineered, high quality (beautiful welds) components in a unique configuration designed to compensate for and protect (deal with) very specific and tight space constraints of the cooling system, the framing of the vehicle and the replacement of the armature (crash bar)

On to Day 5 -- completing the under shield installation ......



Winch tray is in !

 

I had other things to do today, so just did a bit on the Defender -- completed the winch tray install completely, torqueing all done, installed the under panel support, lower air inlet duct and moved the winch from its box to its place. I reached the end of PowerfulUK winch install video 2 and page 30 out of 72 of the winch install instructions.

Just a couple of comments:

1. I was able to install the under panel support without drilling out the holes as shown on the PowerfulUK video. I was careful in the previous steps to pull up the winch tray as I torqued it. This helped, I think.

2. the Winch is a beauty. Warn Zeon 10 - S. Really solid -- functional. Has the wholly analog, wired control -- simple. The tray was clearly designed with it in mind. A perfect fit.

3. I must depart from the video and written flow of directions at this point, as I did not order the cover kit -- instead, am going for the Lucky8 truck clean look. From here on in, I will be in puzzle piece creation mode. Fortunately, I stacked the pieces I took off in layered order and kept all the screws in the holes they came from. So, it may take a little creativity and selective use of the instructions, but I think I can get there. I will keep you informed of the steps, and the thoughts behind them, in case anyone else chooses this approach in the future.

Enjoy !

 

Kudos to you for doing it yourself. I was able to get my winch and undertray as part of custom build order but the dealer had to install it (not factory or port of entry). I also figured that after TFL's dealer install problem and watching the PowerfulUKLtd youtube series, that this was going to be done by dealer in Portland and if they messed it up, it would be their problem to fix under warranty.

It took three days and included some paint work after the cutting etc but that was due to the fact that mine is Dynamic-X trim I believe. I'm sure that mine wasn't their first install.

So far, no problems although I'm not a fan of the plastic cover over the winch opening. That may end up being removed and never refitted. If I get into a survival situation and need some kindling for the fire then I can also rely on the five Warn manuals they included for every other region of the world.

Btw, I think that the metal undertray and exposed front tow hook should be standard or at least included in one of the more offroad packages (it isn't). Who the heck will want to climb underneath, unclip, aka snap off, the plastic clips just to remove the plastic cover to gain access to the tow loop?

 

I was surprised to find that the Winch with the control module (the crown part with WARN on it) attached CANNOT be removed without removing the Hood Latch Frame AND the Upper Cooling Vent. As well, the control module alone CANNOT be removed in that condition. Two bad surprises. There is just not enough room to lift either item out.

I do not want to to have tear down all that was required to install the winch tray, just to service the winch --- that makes no sense. So, I took off the described parts, removed the winch, removed the control module, reinstalled the winch, and ordered a remote mounting kit from WARN to mount the control module under the hood.

This is how it looks now .... going forward.

 

The bumper came apart with 5 different pieces -- it was a bit of a struggle, back to the plastic trim tools and just the right amount of force.

Then moved on to fitting each piece and beginning to determine how best to cut away the correct parts and leave the needed ones. I am still working towards not purchasing a JLR cover kit. I worked the fitting and cutting for a few hours and had enough for the day -- do not desire to make a mistake which will cause me to have a long wait to replace it.

More to come ....