how to fit a front recovery hook?

[happydad59]

I'm taking the newly renovated 2a for a tour of the Snowy High Country soon. The group will have some Mitsubishi and Toyota's so I will obviously need a recovery point to pull them out of trouble! I have an aftermarket recovery hook with 2 bolts about 40 mm apart but I can't figure out where to mount it. Anywhere on the main chassis member leads to interference between the two hook mounting bolts and the bumper bar bolts or the various supports for the bumper/spring hangers. It might be possible to put it sideways on the spring hanger. Has anyone else done this and if so how?

[chazza]

Show us a picture of your hook.

It may be possible to bolt it to a plate and then bolt the plate through the chassis and bumper as the Rover recovery eyes were done,

Cheers Charlie

[Summiitt]

Im assuming your talking about the front of the car? If so, I've always done my recovery points by using 2 rated eye bolts, mounted directly into the front of the bumper bar, inline with the chassis rails.
Make up a section of flat bar at least 6-10mm thick that sits inside the bumper bar to help spread the load and drill holes to allow the eye bolts to pass through the flat bar and fix them with nyloc nuts. I normally use a wire rope bridle, about 2m long to spread the load between the two points...just make sure your front dumb irons arnt full of rust otherwise your bumper bar will depart tour vehicle!

[happydad59]

Thanks for the replies, I have done a lot of fossicking aroung the various forums and other sources on the internet and this is what I have found out. The basic problem is the huge load a snatch recovery can place on the anchor point - maybe up to 10 tons. any anchor point nneds too be very strong or it becomes a missile. The simplest solution (from the aulro forums in a number of threads ) is to wrap chains around the chassis at both bumper anchor points and use a bridle between them. This is probably the strongest option. The next best was to weld a plate onto chassis behind the spring hanger and bolt a hook onto the hanger and the new plate - seems like a very strong option too, but requires good welding skills. Various schemes with things bolted to bumper bar rely on the strength of the bumper and the mounting bolts - summiitts solution was among the best along these lines. Ideas of bolting thru the chassis are all limited by the limited strength of the chassis and are not very uuseful unless a crush tube is added to prevent the chassis rail from deforming. All in all I'm now leaning towards a simple solution of drilling a hole in the inner spring hanger plate on each side and putting a rated bow shackle thru the hole. This will be the anchor point for a rated tree protector as a bridle.

On another note I got a roadworthy certificate ("blue slip" in NSW) last week so she is now road legal. Will post a bit of a history soon, starting with landygirls hard work with the chassis and then my work with brakes, electrics, interior etc.

[chazza]

The basic problem is the huge load a snatch recovery can place on the anchor point - maybe up to 10 tons. any anchor point nneds too be very strong or it becomes a missile. .

Surely the simplest solution, is not to do snatch-recovery and instead use a winch, or a tow with a bridle, using Land Rover's recovery eyes,

Cheers Charlie