Thread: Homemade winch bar

Thanks guys! As far as it being compliant, I looked at the ADR rules online and there were pages and pages of difficult to decipher information, I then googled "winch bar bullbar regulations W.A." And found a W.A. Department of transport site which gave the necessary information in a much clearer way including diagrams of how they should and should not be manufactured. I used this info as a guide when I designed and built my bar. The basic rules were that the bar should not have any sharp edges or protrusions, should not angle forward, it should either angle slightly back towards the vehicle or be straight up and down, and should roughly conform to the shape of the vehicle front end. I built my bar to conform to these standards. I actually spoke to a W.A. Copper the other day about the bar, he seemed to think there were no issues with it the way I described it to him so although he hadn't seen the bar he reckoned I would be fine to have it. As far as insurance goes, I phoned the RAC here in Perth before I built it and they seemed fine with me building it, their only concern was that I should tell them as soon as I build and fit it so they can add it to my cover in case it is damaged in an accident! I had thought of having it checked out by a licensing centre here but no one, including the policeman I spoke to, seemed to think it was of any concern. Since I took these photos I have added a landrover sticker to it, it serves no real purpose other than to the untrained eye of non landrover people it looks now like a standard landrover accessory. I actually took it down to southern landrover this morning and the bloke I bought the landie from took several pics of it and asked me to give him a price on making them for the Xtech, he reckons he could sell them! I actually built it out of scrap and obsolete material from work, if I had bought the materials specially for it I would have probably built it slightly differently, for example the tubular bumper section is made out of 5mm water pipe, I could drive it through a brick wall! The total weight of the bar is 33kilos.

a few more pics showing the winch in place and the landrover sticker. The next step will be mounting the winch control box and fitting a couple of spotties inside the bar.