Custom high mount winch bar for a Defender - ideas?

[Offender90]

Hi all,

I'm designing a custom high mount winch bar for a defender & want to keep a good approach angle. I have a non AC defender and will be recessing the winch into the grill to minimise front wheel overhang. I like the A-frame style bars and already have a Bearmach A-frame, which I plan to use as I don't have access to a tube bender.

I've got a concept sketch so far, and have been trying to determine the best location to mount the winch in relation to the chassis mounts.

This is the concept (although it may look significantly different by the time the winch fits the bar)



A couple of questions for those of you who have a similar setup:

1.) How close to the radiator is your winch bar mounted? I was thinking about 40mm to 50mm to be plenty. Too close or too conservative?

2.) At what height is the base of your winch in comparison to the chassis mounts, and how far forward? Based on preliminary calcs, I came up with the following:
a.) Face of winch mounting plate ~135mm in front of the chassis rails.
b.) Bottom of the "winch mount tray" in line with the bottom of the chassis rails -( although I'm thinking of moving it up so its in line with the top of the rail instead)

i.e. it would be mounted somewhat like this:

Side:




Top:




Front:




And Iso:




How do these compare with other setups you've seen? Any thoughts?

Cheers

Bojan



Oh, this is what its going on by the way - the one on the left with the A frame

[uninformed]

heres mine,

keeping the bottom of winch with the bottom of the chassis rail is better practice, but it will reduce the approach angle.

if you dont have A/C, and you have a TDI or td5 i would definately consider a full width intercooler and rad...

my winch is quite close to my A/C condensor, about 25mm, you may get some flexing, but you want that craddle to be pretty damn stout, and fixed to the chassis well to do its job anyway.

if my winch touches my A/C condensor or rad, i've had a pretty major impact, that having no winch wouldnt really matter anyway.

Serg

[Offender90]

heres mine,

keeping the bottom of winch with the bottom of the chassis rail is better practice, but it will reduce the approach angle.

My initial thoughts also, to have the bottom of the drum in line with the middle of the chassis rails (as in front pic) to avoid a bending moment applied to both the bar and the mounting bolts. The chassis rails look sturdy enough not to worry.

If I were to raise the mount height, I'd have to stiffen the winch mount tray with a plate either side, going all the way back to the chasis mount. I figure can lift it by ~5cm before introducing any real bending moment, but would ideally want to go up to 10 cm. Hmmm... thoughts?

if you dont have A/C, and you have a TDI or td5 i would definately consider a full width intercooler and rad...

Cheers , this one's a V8 - my oiler is getting a full width intercooler tho, just needed to figure out where to fit it.

my winch is quite close to my A/C condensor, about 25mm, you may get some flexing, but you want that craddle to be pretty damn stout, and fixed to the chassis well to do its job anyway.

I was more worried about untidy cable damaging the radiator - do you have any sort of a shield around the winch drum to stop the cable from touching the rad?

if my winch touches my A/C condensor or rad, i've had a pretty major impact, that having no winch wouldnt really matter anyway.

X 2

Serg

Cheers

Bojan

[Chucaro]

I was looking the other day this photo on a competition LR which have a very simple mount.

Cheers

[Psimpson7]

heres mine,

keeping the bottom of winch with the bottom of the chassis rail is better practice, but it will reduce the approach angle.

if you dont have A/C, and you have a TDI or td5 i would definately consider a full width intercooler and rad...

my winch is quite close to my A/C condensor, about 25mm, you may get some flexing, but you want that craddle to be pretty damn stout, and fixed to the chassis well to do its job anyway.

if my winch touches my A/C condensor or rad, i've had a pretty major impact, that having no winch wouldnt really matter anyway.

Serg

The TD5 has, as standard both a full width rad and intercooler.

[Psimpson7]

Bojan,

here is mine. (before we cut the wings, rewired it and chopped the little chassis protrusions off) It sits very very close to the intercooler, and above the chassis rails.

eta I think there a 9 bolts that hold it on, including 3 down vertically through the front x member

[leeds]

Have a look [url-http://www.devon4x4.com/products_b/c43/d44-competition-products.html]HERE[/url] for some ideas.

Sitting the bumper on top of chassis rail improves approach angle. Make the bumper tapered and cut the bottom of wings as well.

A lowline winch such as a Warn 9.5 can fit inside a straight bumper. Large winches such as the Warn 8274 can not. Synthetic lines have a smaller fairlead.

To improve approach line completely need a centre mounted winch and you can get away with just a small fairlead at the front.

HTH


Regards


Brendan

[uninformed]

what is really important to you?

is the ultimate approach angle what your really after? or just a good overall package?

raising the high mount will block the rad and intercooler. you already mentioned the structural disadvantages...

cutting the wings and tapering the bar up and back like mine does have its advantage...alot of the time we dont approach things dead square on, this style leads to a better approach angle on the corners...

just keep playing around with the designe, i just did 1-1 scale drawings on the garage floor till i got what i wanted, if i was doing it over i would probably try and get my winch lower...

no i dont have anything between the winch and condensor, it hasnt been a problem yet, but not a bad idea...

how do i post full size pics, not thumb nails?

Serg

[taff]

hey bojan fromwhat you've drawn it doesn't look to disimilar from a scorpoin racing bar, and with the man hours to build it, it may work out cheaper to buy one. though no satisfaction of it being your own. heres a link to mine

110 county picture by taff-in-oz - Photobucket

it sit's about 20mm in front of rad but i put the control box under the bonnet so as not too have too much blocking the airflow in front of rad.

[Michele]

Hello there,
here's how I did mine:
The D-90 Source - Homeworks

in the pics there's still the SW X9, I later got an 8274 and had a brand new cradle to suit, with +++ gussets.
The cradle simply sits on top of the bumper, and the combo never batted an eyelid so far.

Basically the bumper is a replica of the stock one (dimensionally speaking),
just with tapered ends and integrated recovery points.

And of course it's thicker