Central winch mounting. (1 Viewer)

[HandForged]

I've searched and seen this mentioned here a few times but nothing definite. I have been watching some of the build videos for the offroad challenge trucks, mostly rainforest and Aussie builds and noticed a common thing with a good many. A central winch mounted in the middle of the chassis. The winch line is carried out the back, through a sheave and into a fairlead. It then travels along the drivers side of the truck to another fairlead of sorts on the front bumper on the drivers side. This might seem ridiculous to some I guess but my first thought was just the opposite. First off it saves weight. Second it decreases the approach angle on the front of the truck ( no need for a winch bumper) and it allows a mechanical advantage pulling from the rear. The front remains 1:1 as I remember. The rear always being a double line pull. Speed is the name of the game in some of these "Winch challenges" essentially but I think there is some solid information there.

On the project truck I am putting together I am going to be setting one of these up with a 12k centrally mounted electric winch. I'd like to see what and if you guys have done anything in this space. There are lots of good videos online and a few mention this very thing but none of them in depth. I figured it might be an interesting topic to explore and I can post some pictures as I go along here as I have the body off of the chassis on my project and it seems like the perfect time to sort it out and get some pictures. Contributions are appreciated.

 

[cruiserpilot]

I’ve seen it a couple of times. It has merit. I’d sure like to see what you have for ideas. What
truck do you have? I’ve got a 60 with winches mounted front and rear. Contradictory since I’m always going
on about saving weight for long haul trips. I’ve got a huge rear center mounted fuel tank so be obligated to run the wire down one side or the other. I don’t think an offset pull makes any difference.
One truck I saw in Shreveport was a old style Range Rover - he used ARB snatch blocks welded to the bottom as part
of his pulley system. It worked really well.
Draw it out, post it up. I’m curious as to what you come up with.

 

[HandForged]

My project is based on an FZJ80 chassis.

What I have in mind is locating the winch behind the last cross member on the 80 chassis. The one that also holds the bridge for the coil spring mounts. I'll fab a generic winch mount there. One that I can change the winch out later if I needed to. The cable would exit in the center of the chassis to the rear. There it will contact a boxed and reinforced single groove sheave. Through the sheave and exit to the drivers side. Into another boxed single groove sheave. Like a crane, they would both have centering runners welded into the box that houses them so when the cable was slack it would not run out of the groove slack or under tension. After travelling around the second sheave it would travel through a tube ( I think) directing it to the front of the truck along the drivers side. For safety purposes in case of cable breakage.

Now herein lies a small issue as it isn't a straight shot. I am going to start there actually, try to create a path through back to front first so that cable won't have any restrictions or places to bind and create friction. If I can make that work out, it would exit from the front bumper in a regular fairlead and clip in to a connection point on the passenger side of the bumper.

Front winching is just a matter of pulling out the cable and hooking up. Rear winching would be a matter of pulling a loop in the cable and connecting a snatch block into the loop and then to the base or whatever you're pulling. Here is a good video with some inspiration and a cool truck as well.

 

[HandForged]

I am weighing the pros and cons of using steel cable or high grade winch rope for the application. I think fully shielded in tubing the winch rope would be fine, not coming in contact with very much heat on the drivers side of the truck. Steel cable would be much heavier for sure but it might be more durable for this sort of thing. Not sure on that one. The winch I have to mess with is a new in the box HF 12k that I bought on sale a few months back for cheap. It already has steel cable on it so, for now I will work with that.

 

[HandForged]

I think I have all the materials ordered for this project and I wanted to give a run down of the parts. For those that have seen the video I posted, the front conical fairlead I will be machining from a tire machine centering cone. I picked one up on Ebay for 30 bucks. hardened steel so I will temper it in the forge, machine the nice curved face into it and incorporate it into my front bumper.

The pulleys I am using are 3" diameter billet with a 3/4" bronze bushing. These are parts ordered for a bend pac hydraulic car lift. They are each rated for about 6k pounds. I ordered three of these. The Sheave block I build for the back of the frame will house two, with the third for a spare of if I need it to redirect cable under the chassis. I'll post pictures of everything once it arrives.

 

[HandForged]

Made some headway on this today while working on the truck. I decided tubing was a better way for the cable to travel versus being exposed under the truck. This will protect the cable should anything happen but more importantly it will protect the other parts under the truck should the cable break. Here are some pictures of where I'm at.

 

[HandForged]

parts are starting to come in for the rear sheave block portion of this project. I also ordered a couple hundred feet of winch rope and some aluminum hawse fairleads that have a narrower feed slot on them. All of that should be in first of the week and I can start making some head way on getting this together and tested. This is all part of a larger build so it may take some time before I can get it 100 percent proofed out but it's looking good.

 

[renago]

central winch is a nice idea , but ....
the main problem is the build up of the line on the spool.
in general it should roll up tight at neat .
but in practise I saw several Volvo Lapland , that have this system as stock , where the line is rather cramped .
for this reason I would strongly avoid to keep the line inside a tube .
inside a tube will make it difficult to unwind the rope /cable in case you need to .
I don't know what kind of use you intend to do with you 80 , but a PTO will be awesome.
if you deviate the exhaust tubes on the side of the truck , you should find enough space more in the center of the car.

 

[HandForged]

Using a line feeder I see little issue with what your describing. I guess we will find out what happens.

 

[HandForged]

todays work on it. I used a universal winch mount as the base. Located it as low as I could on the rearmost crossmember while still giving clearance to all of the suspension components. Burned in both sides and started on the gussets, sheeted them out top and bottom. At this elevation it is about 2" higher than the tubing going forward. This will need to be corrected in the rear sheave block but shouldn't be much of a problem using winch rope.

 

[HandForged]

Here it is all welded out. Still have some grinding to do but otherwise it's ready for primer. I went ahead and assembled the winch with the roller fairlead but I am not sure I will use it. I have a number of hawse fairleads on the way. As a side note, this added a ton of strength back there. With the addition of the rear bumper structure this will be as solid as a one ton truck back there.

 

[Whiskerz]

How hard will it be to remove or repair that winch if needed when the body is installed ?

 

[HandForged]

How hard will it be to remove or repair that winch if needed when the body is installed ?

If it was getting some sort of standard bed, no harder than loosening the bolts and lifting the bed up about 8". Mounting bolts are removable from the bottom, cable leads are easy to reach and remove.

BUT, since I am building the bed that is going on this truck, I will likely build in an access for it.

 

[cruiserpilot]

Can you rotate the electrical and free spool 90 deg? Just so they’re not right on top?
I’m sceptical of those 3” bend pak pulleys. There is a lot of load, and these are going to
see offset loads, not consistent. I’d think that each should be at your working load limit,
capable of 12K. Binding side load is what I’m thinking without knowing your routing.
My thoughts are with Renago about the tubing of the cable, I’d think to leave it
open but I see your thinking.

 

[HandForged]

Can you rotate the electrical and free spool 90 deg? Just so they’re not right on top?
I’m sceptical of those 3” bend pak pulleys. There is a lot of load, and these are going to
see offset loads, not consistent. I’d think that each should be at your working load limit,
capable of 12K. Binding side load is what I’m thinking without knowing your routing.
My thoughts are with Renago about the tubing of the cable, I’d think to leave it
open but I see your thinking.

The pulleys are rated for more than 12k pounds, they are solid stainless with a 3/4" shaft. I fully understand the loads involved, you'll see what I mean when the rear sheave is completed. No one piece or pulley will be bearing the weight alone. As far as rotating the electrical connections and free spool, I don't know why I would. There will be plenty of clearance in that area. With the connections covered with rubber boots there is no problem there at all. This project is getting a custom fabricated bed, most likely with an access to the winch ( I just typed that in the question above) I have a plan for outboarding the free spool lever, won't be hard. I don't understand the concern of the tube? It's just a protected clear alley way for the winch rope to travel without getting abraded, dirty or hot. It is there to keep oil, fuel or anything else from coming in contact with the winch rope. It will not be a structural piece of the winching system and will bear no weight in a pull. A centering fairlead at each end will assure that it passes cleanly through without contacting the tube at all...

 

[HandForged]

Spooled the winch today with new Dyneema winch rope, 150 ft. With the added length of the return to go to the front of the frame it has 163 ft. The cable feed on the large winch did a great job of keeping the alignment on the spool. After putting it on tight, I shucked off about 40-50 ft and dropped it letting the cable guide respool and tension it on there. Worked like a charm. I don't know if it will do the same with a side load (front pull) but the rear straight pull looks great. I'll start setting up the rear sheave block Monday then run it through some small tests on the respool. So far it looks promising.

 

[david1313]

Spooled the winch today with new Dyneema winch rope, 150 ft. With the added length of the return to go to the front of the frame it has 163 ft. The cable feed on the large winch did a great job of keeping the alignment on the spool. After putting it on tight, I shucked off about 40-50 ft and dropped it letting the cable guide respool and tension it on there. Worked like a charm. I don't know if it will do the same with a side load (front pull) but the rear straight pull looks great. I'll start setting up the rear sheave block Monday then run it through some small tests on the respool. So far it looks promising.

Any more progress on this project?