Thread: does the lower front grill need cutting to fit a winch

I didn't think you could fit a 6hp low mount winch between the chassis rails on a Land Rover with a centralised fairlead like with ARB bars.

mm, I don't know, ARB seem to think I can (or they can, as they are going to fit it).

What makes you think a low mount won't fit ? The 6hp is the same (or smaller) physical size to the smaller hp winches (I think 4.8hp?).

The 9.5 winch is an XD9000 with a 6hp motor, the 6hp motor is physically a lot larger than the 4.6hp which is on the XD9000. The 4.6hp already sits about 0.5mm from the chassis rail.

Maybe the Defender has a cutout in the bar mount for the winch motor to pass in to.

About 20mm difference in motor lengths

what would I be looking for to check ? I'll get the tape measure out and the camera and try and work out of it will fit.
cheers
Simon

The OP and first question was regarding the depth (how fat ) of the winch and has now gone onto the length of the winch and if it will even fit between the rails. Its pretty simple , measure it or look up the specs on the winch and measure the space that you have. Agreed that if it does fit between the rails then the spool is most likely not going to be centred but this does not matter unless the bar cutout is already in the centre. I recently fitted a 8000lb on an older Defender and I made the winch cradle fairly close profile for approach purposes and did not need to cut the lower panel but I did bend it in a little so the cable if it gets crossed over wouldn't rub the panel . You need to look at the bar and the winch combo, I would guess a factory made set up would not require cutting, but the people that are fitting should know what they are doing. Don't loose sleep over it.
If you have the winch pick it up and shove it in, you will soon know.

Warn have detailed measurements at the bottom of each page on their website if you dont have them already 9.5xp-s

Cheers, Murray

As earlier advised check the winch dimensions, unless you want the winch out in front of the chassis rails it will have to fit between the "horns" or ends of the chassis rails. I chose an xd 9000 for that reason it fits between the chassis rails, ( not by much, maybe 15 mm each end.), the back of the winch is almost up against the grill panel. The top of the winch housing has the bottom of the grill almost resting on it. The winch drum is not centralised on the winch, its offset away from the motor, the gearbox end is shorter. you can see in the photo of my home made bar one side of the bar is longer beside the fairlead. I don't see that as a problem, it makes no difference to the function of the winch.