Setting for Stick Welding
The setting might be different from box to box, but on my cracker box, I'd have to be running about 80 on stuff that's kinda heavy like that. You know if you've got 1/4 plate, you can run it pretty hot. On thin stuff you'll have to dial it back a lot. But take some scrape and run test weld. Get a big ass hammer and see if you can beat it apart. If it pops apart, then its way too cold. Where your winch mounts, that box might need a tack weld all around to get everything in place and prevent warping. Then you might need to make a couple complete passes, especially on 1/4 plate and angle iron, because this part is gonna carry all the stress of a pull. The rest of it is basically cosmetics compared to the stresses the plate where the winch sits.
Are you using pre-existing holes in the frame. Use as many of those as you can find and big washers on both sides and pull them down really tight. It may sound like over-kill, but a big winch, a heavy truck, and kinda a sideways pull, can put a HUGE stress load on that thing. I've seen some stuff people put on and they'd just have a nut and a lock washer inside the frame. That's fine for basically straight forces, like pulling a trailer, but any sideways stress can pull a nut through the hole without blinking an eye.
You think I'm kidding. I saw a HUGE wrecker truck. Brand new, trying to pull a log truck back up from a deep ditch beside an interstate. I don't know who installed the winch and all that gear, factory or what, but that winch had enough power to pull the whole back of that wrecker truck off with one big pop, and he never even moved the log truck.
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