Posted by Clint Dixon [172.70.127.52] on Saturday, March 11, 2023 at 19:14:56 :
In Reply to: Rear Winching posted by Rob Andrews [172.70.82.162] on Saturday, March 11, 2023 at 16:22:28 :
My '47 WDX had been set up to run the front winch cable under the truck at one time or another.
There had been a roller of some type welded to the under side of the front crossmember (that the engine mounts to). It appeared that they welded two pieces of flat stock steel straight down from the crossmember with the roller between them. This assembly had since been broken off but not before bending the heck out of the lower face of the crossmember. Fromm what was still remaining, this roller was about 12-inches in width. I don't know if the truck hit something that caused the roller to be torn off the truck or if it just wore out from use. In any case they apparently continued to use the winch for a long time afterwards because the leading edge of the crossmember has deep cable burns (groves) in it.
There was also remnants of a couple of smaller rollers about 4-inches in width further back under the truck. One under the crossmember at the front most rear spring perches and another at the rear crossmember. Nothing on these welded assemblies prevented the cable from falling to the axle housings when slack. One of the smaller rollers was about 1-1/2 inches in diameter and worn 1/2 way through at one single point. There was no bushings, bearings, and no way to grease them other than an oil can.
There is also evidence on the truck that they had been running the cable under the axles for quite some time and using the axle housings as "fairleads". Fortunately, the tie rod survived but even it has cable burns on the under side.
When I was really into four-wheeling back in the late 70's and early 80's, I had a Toyota with 40-inch Monster Mudder tires mounted and an 8,000 lb. rated winch on the front in a custom made bumper that kind of looked like the bumper on the front of the Power-Wagon on the Simon and Simon TV show. I had a large roller at the leading lower edge of the bumper that acted like the roller on the front of a WWII 1/2-track. It also served as a means to route the cable rearward under the truck.
Because I had about 8-inches of suspension lift, the cable made contact with nothing under the truck until it reached the rear pipe bumper. This bumper was custom made with two parallel tubes of about 5-inch diameter and 1/2-inch wall. They were parallel to each other, and about 1-inch apart, but were not stacked vertically. The bottom tube was set inward towards the truck to allow for better departure angle. The two tubes acted just like a giant Hawse fairlead. I regularly kept the cable routed under the truck and hooked to a rear tow hook on one of the rear bumper brackets. It was always available and when I wanted to winch forward too, all I had to do was slacken the cable, unhook it from the rear bumper, and real the cable in until the leader chain and hook were at the front of the truck. It just road across the tops of the axle housings on its way forward.
Junior