New Winch/Bumper install - how perpendicular to frame/ Hawes fairlead? (or lack thereof)? (1 Viewer)

[re_guderian]

Newbie question here. I've had 2 lancruisers with winches in the past, but I bought the rigs used, and with the winches already installed. I recently purchased a GX 460, and have (finally!) received my front bumper. I'm in the process of mounting a Smittybilt XRC 9.5 gen 3 winch onto the bumper before I install it this weekend (Victory Strike bumper). When I bolted it up, it sits slightly crooked on the winch mount plate - about 1/4" off over the 10" long winch bolt mount pattern. The winch mount plate in the bumper is slotted, with the slots running fore/aft. There is VERY little lateral room in the slots for the bolts to shift left/right, so there's not much "rotational" adjustment to be had. I took the winch off to measure the holes, but due to the angles and welds on the bumper winch plate, there's not a good datum to measure from, but it "appears" that the winch mount slots are not totally out of whack.

Questions.

1) I'm assuming it's desireable to have the winch spool be perpendicular to the hawes fairlead. Will the amount of offset I'm seeing cause spooling issues on recovery?

2) Any harm in enlarging the slots to achieve a more perpendicular mounting?

3) No torque specs on the 4 winch mount bolts, but I had originally set them to about 50 lb/ft. If the winch isn't mounted at the front of the slots, will a hard pull likely shift the winch on the mounting plates?

or 4) am I way overthinking this???

Thanks for some newbie help, I can post pictures if needed.

 

[gnob]

Slot the holes to square it up. Move on.