Re: Winching backwards

[Tom Mandera <tsm1@domain.elided>]

David Nedved wrote:
> My best solution would be a good fairlead where the cable goes through
> the front bumper, a pulley on the end of both the front and back bumper
> (on both sides if you want flexibility) and a pulley in the middle of
> I haven't read the IHC list much at all recently, but isn't Tom Mandera
> the one who delights in coming up with bizarre and complex solutions to
> these sort of "armchair engineering" problems?

OK, here comes the armchair engineer. ;-)

IMO, best plan of attach is thus:

You need to mount the winch to the rear bumper, but behind it.  We want
to move some weight rearward *and* cut down on our front clearance
problems.

This means you'd have to do some modifying to the gas tank.  I think I'd
be tempted to mount the winch off-center to the driver's side, and then
modify the gas tank appropriately to 1) clear the winch behind the rear
crossmember and 2) give clearance down the driver's side (inboard) frame
rail.  This means you're giving up some gas tank capacity.. and a custom
fuel cell.

Run the cable down the driver's side frame rail.  You'd have a small
"fairlead" (I'm thinking of one with a relatively small opening) near
the rear shock-mount cross member to feed the cable *through* the
crossmember.  Run it up and pick a nice line to take it just under the
clutch pivot arm and forward to another small opening fairlead - perhaps
attached to the driver's side motor mount or in that area.  Then run the
cable up at a slight angle to a conventional roller fairlead mounted in
the center of your front bumper.  This would mean either lowering the
fairlead under the front crossmember, or punching a hole in the actual
front crossmember to clear the winch cable and the fairlead.

Now put a fairlead in the rear bumper through the rear crossmember. 
When you need to winch rearwards, attach the hook up front to the
frame.  Unspool the cable and pull some cable off the back side of the
winch and out the rear mounted fairlead.  Attach a pulley to it, and you
can double line rearwards.  Note - you could squish your frame doing
this with a good deal of load.

Another thought - mount the winch to the "shock mount" crossmember -
again on the driver's side - and you wouldn't need to modify the gas
tank as much to clear the cable to the rear.  Of course, it would take a
little more work to get the cable out the rear of the truck when you
needed to double line rearward.

A splash guard of some wort would be nice to keep your winch and cable
from being constantly buried in goo... maybe this would be a good place
for a hydraulic powered winch - no electrical motors to get gummed up
with mud n' corrosion?

More work than I care for.. I'm opting for the cradle mount.  

-Tom