Rough Country Hidden Winch Bumper - IMPROVED

Quick facts...

• Extremely impressed
• Amazing price
• Impossible to access lever to engage/disengage spool (I have a solution I am working now, follow up video soon)
• Armor can stay on for oil change (follow up video soon)
• Warn Evo-10S fits
• Installed by myself

The video will answer a lot more...

Good job, the video is great. I'll be interested to see how you access the spool lever.

It's obviously a much more expensive product but one thing I like about RCI's Pike bumper is that it comes with a support bracket that replaces the stock piece and gives you clearance to turn the handle w/o it hitting. I guess if you can remove the spool lever and turn it 90 degrees then maybe it's a moot point....

I actually stayed up pretty late and got er done! The spool engage could not be easier now. I’ll film a quick video shortly.

Here ya go! And how I change the oil without removing armor as well. I now love this setup.

Wow. The ingenuity of people never ceases to amaze me. Very well done!

I have the CBI Super Stock Covert on order and when I asked their support team if I could reach the free spool lever the response was, "no problem, just reach down from the top". To which my response was, "yeah, that's not going to happen with this truck". Their bumper actually has pretty large cutouts in the front so I'm hopeful I'll just be able to reach in and turn it but if not....I now know there are options!

gofastdan said:

Wow. The ingenuity of people never ceases to amaze me. Very well done!

I have the CBI Super Stock Covert on order and when I asked their support team if I could reach the free spool lever the response was, "no problem, just reach down from the top". To which my response was, "yeah, that's not going to happen with this truck". Their bumper actually has pretty large cutouts in the front so I'm hopeful I'll just be able to reach in and turn it but if not....I now know there are options!

Click to expand...

Yeah… I think there’s a lot of disconnect and unknown about these trucks still and short of the actual design team and engineers that make the bumpers, customer service won’t have much to offer us.

Thanks for the words! Good luck!

gofastdan said:

Wow. The ingenuity of people never ceases to amaze me. Very well done!

I have the CBI Super Stock Covert on order and when I asked their support team if I could reach the free spool lever the response was, "no problem, just reach down from the top". To which my response was, "yeah, that's not going to happen with this truck". Their bumper actually has pretty large cutouts in the front so I'm hopeful I'll just be able to reach in and turn it but if not....I now know there are options!

Click to expand...

When you install the CBI bumper, please post some feedback. I have my eye on the same bumper. Thanks.

Mjsimmons said:

When you install the CBI bumper, please post some feedback. I have my eye on the same bumper. Thanks.

Click to expand...

I'll certainly do a post with plenty of pictures. It's probably going to be a couple of months though. That's the downside w/the CBI products, the lead time. I ordered the last week of Nov and they quoted 10 weeks out for shipment, so I'm guessing I'll get it early to mid-Feb.

If I had it to do over again I'd take a hard look at the unit Ironman just released. It's closer to the CBI Covert than the Super Stock Covert that I ordered, but it looks good and ships next week...

I wanted to jump on this thread and say Thank You for your videos, and also your post. It helped me clarify a few smaller details before taking the leap and buying/installing this bumper.

I wanted to add one big detail for those interested.

You CAN install this bumper and winch WITHOUT cutting the cross member. This was a big deal breaker for me since I have the Pro, and I wanted to retain the stock skid plate which mounts onto that Cross member. I also wanted to avoid any nonreversible install incase I sell in a few years.

Your videos and shots helped me to decipher that indeed the bumper cleared the cross member and plastic shroud easily. With one caveat, you will not be able to install the RC skid plates that come with the kit. Again not a big deal for me since I wanted to retain the TRD skid plate. That cross member gets in the way of the high approach angle of the RC skid plate.

The only bit of modification that needs to be done is to create a small bracket that allows you to still mount the lower bumper fascia bolts. I simply did this by cutting off the front 2 inches of the supplied RC brand skid plate, and using that strip of metal to secure the lower bumper points. It looks clean and OEM once done. And is solid with no wiggle.

I and super happy with how it turned out. Everything is quality, and looks OEM+. I am polishing up a few small details of the install, and I will be creating a post highlighting all of this install on the Hybrid Tacoma in the next couple days for those interested! And Pictures to follow.

But again, Thank you!

What a SOLID update! I’m sure quite a few owners like you are going to get great use out of that.

You going to run an extension like I did to get to the clutch lever?

Soft Taco said:

What a SOLID update! I’m sure quite a few owners like you are going to get great use out of that.

You going to run an extension like I did to get to the clutch lever?

Click to expand...

that’s actually what I am buttoning up this week. Your idea was on point.