4WD Winch without the Weight

I wanted to fit a winch to my ’98 HZJ105 without wearing a huge  weight penalty, or spending too much money. That ruled out walking into ARB and handing over the Credit Card for a new Bullbar and Warn. It meant I had to DIY this little exercise.

I wanted to keep the weight down, so decided a 9500lb was smaller and lighter than a 12,000lb. If I needed more pulling power, I would use a pulley block.

After reading the SA 4WD Winch Review, and getting a good deal, I bought a 9500lb Ironman Winch for $625 w/ 3yrs warranty. They are claimed to be waterproof and come with what I needed. I would have preferred a Premier winch due to the brake not being in the drum making it more suited to synthetic rope, but it was out of my price range. I would really have preferred a hydraulic Milemarker, but that was really really out of my price range, especially when I factored in questions around power steering pump flow rates.

After using steel cable and hating it, synthetic winch rope was a requirement. I figured 100ft (28M) of 5/16″ (8mm) rated at 13,700LB breaking strain would do. Less rope on the drum keeps the winch closer to it’s rated pulling force. I specifically bought their “Hybrid” line, where the first 25ft is a Technora based rope, and the rest is Amsteel Blue. The Technora is more temperature stable for use on winches with a brake inside the drum. I bought mine from www.cseoffroad.com, along with the alloy fairlead, rope protector and safety thimble. The alloy fairlead was a free bonus at the time. I also grabbed 100ft (28M) of 3/8″ (10mm) Amsteel Blue winch extension rated at 19,600lb breaking strain. The separate extension allows the flexibility of simply extending the pull, connecting two different points, putting a winch block in between the two etc. You need the thicker rope size if you are going to use a winch block, as it will double the pulling force – 9500×2 = 19,000lb.

The next item was a mount. Other mounts I have seen use 6mm steel plate in various arrangements. I settled for the thickest and strongest alloy channel I could get – 8.4mm x 6.8mm tempered alloy. It doesn’t have a rated “strength” in this configuration, especially after I chopped it up to get the winch to fit. I can say that in a pull to stall test, the rope snapped before the winch stalled, and the mount, while having a slight twist, suffered no permanent deformation. The winch is in an ideal position, directly between the chassis rails, very low, and as far back as possible. The mount acts to protect the radiator from sticks etc.

The fairlead I mounted into the bullbar with 20x heavy gauge rivets. Whilst I am not that confident as to their strength, in shear the steel pins combined with the tight fit should be very strong. At a 45deg pull they will be in both tension and shear, a less desirable situation. The alloy bar mounts are particularly weak in a sideways direction, so I think I’ll be avoiding heavy angled pulls. The fairlead needed to have it’s inside edge rounded a lot, as the winch sits quite low in relation to the bar.

Finally it was just a matter of the control box hidden inside the bar, the wiring and lockout switches. I recommend the lockout switches be waterproofed underneath with silicon, and rubber caps fitted (I used rubber “feet”). Water pulls inside them and the copper contacts stop working.The winch is wired with a switch to each AGM battery, letting me use either one, or both.

By dropping the steel cable and roller fairlead, using an alloy mount, not using a 12,000lb winch and keeping the alloy bar I have kept nearly 75KG off the front of the car. Just as importantly the weight is as low and far back as possible, something most winch bars don’t do. Whilst I accept it’s not as strong as a steel winch bar, it has passed every test I can throw at it so far.

Finally – it’s a whole lot cheaper than driving into ARB, and with Mickey T MTZ’s, twin Air Lockers and some lift, hopefully I won’t need to winch too often (yeah right).

The heaviest aluminium alloy channel I could find. It is also tempered (or so the guy said). 8.4mm base, 6.8mm walls.
Trimmed to fit winch and chassis rails with lower bull-bar mounts. I should have rounded the corners more to stop fatigue.
Winch fits nice and snug.
Alloy hawse fairlead mounted in the factory bar. Yeah I know, I know. If it snaps the rivets then I’ll do something sttronger. The alloy is 6mm checker-plate. The bar is not that strong, nor are the bar mounts.
Terminating the high temp Technora fibre.
Had to grind the allen key to fit the link on the rope.
All spooled up. Rope protector is the black bit. I have a strong plastic / rubber  flap that covers this gap keeping grass and mud out.
Pic when fitted. Yes, I suspect it may snag something one day.
The lockout switches with waterproof covers. They don’t like water in them, and then don’t work.
Internals of the waterproof control box. It’s zip-tied inside the bullbar.