Have always had a winch on my truck (Warn M12000), use it regularly to pull cars/trees/equipment/whatever. I didn't really want to replace the factory bumper on my '23, but wanted to get the winch mounted; have property up in the mountains and hated not having it on there in the wintertime the first year. I played around with a few ways to install it; bought the factory Warn install kit for the OEM winch, but it was not going to work with the M12 or the oil cooler on the 450. Thought about the Rough Country setup, but it was early on in the '23 bodystyle, and again it was questionable if it would work with the winch/oil cooler. Then I started seeing neighbors wiping out their rigs on wildlife, and wanted to get more lights on the front end, so bumper it was. After looking at all the bumpers I could find for a '23+ (there weren't as many a year ago), stumbled across Flog Industries. Everything is 3/16"-1/4" plate, spots for lights, factory ACC/park sensors, fits M12, ordered it up.


First impressions, packaged well, heavy, really nice. The mesh inserts are aluminum so they should play nice with the ACC sensor while letting air through for cooling. Pardon my messy shop, in the middle of projects when this showed up and couldn't wait to get going on it.
Bumper: https://flogindustries.com/products/...50-550~yr_2023








You can see the two big frame brackets still attached. These are each held to the bumper by a big 1" bolt dropped in from the top. Pretty slick method and makes adjustment and quick removal easy. Bumper holes are slotted one direction, holes on brackets the other direction, so you can hang the thing on the truck, slide it around, and tighten them up. They include some 3d printed parking sensor inserts that pop in place, and little brackets for the back to hold it all in.







As slick as the parking sensor setup is, it's giving me fits occasionally. Suddenly one or two will start going off while driving. Enough so that I now have them disabled, which is annoying since this was a feature that swayed me to the bumper. Also, I found that having them sit recessed back in the holders causes them to get packed with snow, so even if they are functioning fine, they become useless in the weather. Next time I have the front end apart I am going to pull all the wiring and reroute it in case having things bunched up is causing some interference or something. Flog was quick to get back to me when I asked them about the problem, saying they didn't have a solution, but would look into it. Never heard back, and subsequent emails from me have apparently been ignored. 😠 Which leads to the ACC sensor, red arrow pointing to bracket:




You take the sensor and factory plastic bracket assembly and bolt it to the front of the indicated metal bracket. All seemed well thought out, hardware included, fit well. Test drive, the ACC worked fine. However, on the first highway road trip, suddenly 'Sensor blocked' messages, pre-collision disabled, cruise disabled. It would quit for 20 minutes or so, then work again, then a few minutes later more errors. Again, got ahold of Flog, told me they never had this problem before and asked for install photos. Said install looked good, didn't see anything wrong, they never had this problem before. After some more back and forth, was told if I unhooked/reconnected the sensor without unhooking the batteries first it would be a problem every time. Well, if that's true, probably should put that in the instructions (none of which were included, with some digging online they have a useless generic PDF that covers all trucks/bumpers). However, since they "never had this problem before" I'm guessing that was nonsense. I have had the ACC sensor out previously while removing factory bumper trying to fit up the OEM winch brackets, and never had a problem. Recalibrated via ForScan, double checked level/alignment, no change. Over 60mph it would fail every time. So I eventually decided to do some experimenting and pulled the bumper back off, removing this area of the bracket just in case it was causing interference:




After making this change, it seems to be about 80% or better fixed. I have done 500 highway miles post-trimming and it has thrown the 'sensor blocked' error only once - So I'm inclined to believe it's still getting some interference somewhere. Next time the nose is apart I may pull out the aluminum screen and then see if anything changes. Anyway, moving back to the install... There's platforms with slotted holes all over for light mounting. By request they included (no charge) brackets to mount the factory fog lights. Had room next to each to add an amber LED fog.
Amber fogs:




Mounted a 30" spot/flood combo LED bar up in the bull bar section. The construction is thoughtful of wiring, and has all kinds of pass-throughs to be able to snake wires around, including holes for the upper light bar wires to drop down. They also include a bunch of sticky-backed ziptie cleats. Nice.
Slim light bar:




Then onto the truck side. Pull off factory bumper. Pretty straightforward; unplug the harness, in the fenderwell there is a large bracket a couple bolts, then pop out the plastic inset covers on each side of the opening, two large acorn nuts on each side and it is free. Then 4 large bolts on each tow hook. Slide the Flog frame mounts on where the tow hooks were and bolt everything up leaving everything just loose enough to slide around. Brackets are marked P and D. The bumper's heavy (so is the winch), I strapped it to a motorcycle lift to make adjustment easy.








Slide it into place, drop the two giant bolts in and start to snug everything up. Once you are happy, crank those suckers all down. Once you get the initial fitment done on the brackets, it's just the two big vertical bolts and the whole thing comes back off. I have had it off and on a few times in a matter of minutes.






Last touch was a couple weeks later when I realized I forgot to put the license plate back on. I didn't have a front plate on the last truck for about 20 years without issue, but figured I'd better not press my luck. Had the idea to build a spring loaded flipper mount that could go over the winch fairlead, but of course Amazon beat me to it. It's pretty slick; spring loaded to stay open, but snaps around the side rollers to stay down. Just pull the snap rings off the roller pins and drop it over.
License plate fairlead mount:




View from the front camera post-install:




Done, back on the trail (pic before I remembered the plate..)! I have a second write-up on upfitter switch wiring which includes all the lights and hard wiring in the winch control; link to that is here: https://www.ford-trucks.com/forums/1...h-control.html

 

Very nice write up!
Never heard of that company but their product looks good.
I like the cuts and angles of that bumper. Being able to reach in to the winch spool is more convenient to me.

 

That's one hell of a nice write-up!!!

Just about every 23 plus truck I have (about 10), We will occasionally get a warning also, this was factory setups.

Might have been just one of those flukes.

 

That's the exact same bumper I have been looking at (albeit the full guard version) for my '24 F-450 for the same reasons! I, too, would like to retain my ACC and front parking sensors. I did see BTBRV on YouTube got that bumper put on and claims he has zero issues.

 

Next time I have the bumper off I'm going to pull the wiring out of where it's tucked into and reroute it, just in case something is causing some interference somewhere. I saw BTBRV's video also while trying to diagnose the problem, wondered if he ran into anything but I guess not. Never had a bit of trouble with either the ACC or park sensors prior. At some point I'll pop one of the park sensor grommets out and see about printing different ones that are more flush mount.

 

@wabba

The respondents quoted above are not lying.

That was one heck of a very nice write up, and what made it so nice is that you took photos from the back side, of the attachment elements and details that are not visible until things are taken apart, and that are not often seen in the write ups of many others who post photos of the front face of their bumpers in finished form, which are no different then the marketing photos of the bumper, and show nothing that isn't already known or easily ascertainable.

Your write up, on the other hand, is much more informative. You focused on the unseen, unknown, unascertainable aspects of the project... allowing the reader to see how the mounting elements mate to the truck, enabling the reader to mentally rehearse what is involved in an instant, without laboring through a video, and without turning a wrench.

Your focus on taking photos of what really matters evidences your practical experience.

Please do write ups more often. FTE welcomes Wabba-World.

 

I used to work for Ranch Hand many years ago. I never heard of this bumper company and wasn't expecting much, but it looks like a really nice, well built bumper. Overbuilt as a matter of fact.

I would suggest pulling the steel cable off the winch and replacing it with synthetic line.

As for the sensor issue, try removing that entire piece of mesh looking punch plate and see if it goes away. If so, trim the punch plate to allow the sensor to remain unblocked before putting it back on.

 

Thanks for the thoughts....Just about anything I jump into gets an internet search/youtube learn first, try to see what I'm getting into. And it's usually 75% complete missing the "unknowns" which is what you need to know!

 

I had built my own bumpers in the past to make them actually functional. I bought a different one for the '23 initially (ordered it before I had the truck) and was pretty disappointed in how it was built; when I found those guys they didn't any photos or details of how it fit online so it was a bit of a blind faith move. But it lived up to it and is a stout, well-engineered unit.
I play to pull the mesh from in front of the ACC at some point (although it's been awhile now since the failure), and if it's looking like it is a complete fix then I'll print a plastic replacement.

That is a good idea on the winch cable. The parking sensor issue is 100% of the time, so easy to know. Thanks