Well, I changed my plans from beach campground to offroading into a desert campout at the last minute, and I still hadn't rigged any front recovery point, so I needed something and FAST. Here's what I came up with:
I'd always wanted a front receiver for the utility. I keep thinking about receiver-mounted winches, bike racks, or even a 2nd spare tire mount. I figured it ought to work ok for recovery too. AFAIK, nobody makes a dedicated front-receiver for the Astro/Safari, but I did recently find this "semi-universal" kit from Reese at Autozone (part# 37042) and after a little measuring, I was pretty sure I could make it work:
The starting point:
Made a cardboard template of the whole side plate, then kept trimming until it fit the inside of the subframe where the bumper mounts. NOTE: Measurement error, the hole spacing is 2-3/8", not 3.
Corrected measurement and after cutting down the side-plate on my band saw:
Starting to bolt things up. Did this for now, may re-visit this going forward. My bumper brackets are not-straight enough that I could probably put the receiver plate inside of it and still bolt everything up...
Getting things centered:
The upward flexing of the plastic looks much worse in the photo than IRL, but I'm still concerned about this a bit. Trying to figure out how to bend the tubing such that it projects forward a bit more - should provide more clearance:
A little trimming of the bumper:
And voila'
It doesn't sit any lower than the lip of the bumper, but does stick forward a bit, so I plan on leaving the shackle insert OUT until needed. Since it's now the limiting factor for my approach angle, I may look into adding one of those skidplate inserts (or tying in the skidplate if I ever get around to having one made). I only felt it catch once when I was bouncing nose-down into a very silty rut, but everything still looked good.
Again, this was all done in a bit of a hurry (2 days before the trip), so I may revisit some of the mounting, but I'd love to get first impressions from everyone.