5: Winch Me Up, Snotty!

...Continued from previous page

Some years ago in a fit on enthusiastic bargain hunting I'd bought a complete Superwinch H14W PTO-driven hydraulic winch setup at Sodbury. It's a beast of a thing - not going to win any competitions but it will pull all day and supposedly is good for 20,000lbs (~10ton) if you twiddle the overload valve.

Perhaps the best advert for it is the fact that Dan had one on his Range Rover for Ladoga and didn't break it.

Anyway, a front crossmember was fabbed up from 100×50 box section and welded in to accommodate the winch's drive spigot.

Along with a ~6mm L-shaped tray to hold the winch itself - it actually doesn't stick out any further than the standard Series front bumper which puts it way above a lot of the ridiculous ploughing attachments of winch bumpers you see fitted to some trucks… ARB I'm looking at you

That kind of tucks up the front end for now - don't worry there's still a whole load of stuff to be done though!

A quick peek from further into the future shows the sides braced up to the chassis once we were happy with a few other bits:

Onwards to The Middle Bit!