- Joined
- Nov 30, 2001
- Messages
- 6,925
- Reaction score
- 514
- Points
- 113
- Location
- Gnaw Bone, Indiana
- Vehicle Year
- 2007
- Make / Model
- Toyota
- Engine Size
- 4.0
- Transmission
- Manual
I tried a receiver on both ends and a receiver mount for the winch. It's good in theory. It's bad in practice.
The first problem is, you never get stuck in your driveway where you tried it out. You get stuck somewhere nasty. In my case I was going up a very steep hill after have gone through a lot of very deep mud. My front axle broke. My winch was in the back. On the mount it's 100#. It's muddy, it's uphill. I'm a strong guy--I was a cannoneer in the marines with 155 howitzers so I am certainly used to throwing and lifting heavy weights, and I have been lifting weights since 8th grade wresting back in 1981. My joints aren't good anymore so I only do freeweights now, but I do 6 reps with 110# dumbells. This incident was 7-8 years ago when I was a little better and humping that winch and mount up the hill and trying to jam the receiver into the socket was heart breaking. And there were two of us. Because of the mud--and I had a plastic cap on the end of the receiver--we couldn't get the pin in and someone had to come back and winch us up the hill.
After that I took off the front receiver mount and made a permanent front mount. I carry a come-along for those times I need to pull backwards a little or keep it from flopping all the way over after tipping. My truck is still wired for the rear winch so I could, in theory, get another winch and keep it in a multi-mount. But usually I saw where I wanted to go and forward help gets me there.
The first problem is, you never get stuck in your driveway where you tried it out. You get stuck somewhere nasty. In my case I was going up a very steep hill after have gone through a lot of very deep mud. My front axle broke. My winch was in the back. On the mount it's 100#. It's muddy, it's uphill. I'm a strong guy--I was a cannoneer in the marines with 155 howitzers so I am certainly used to throwing and lifting heavy weights, and I have been lifting weights since 8th grade wresting back in 1981. My joints aren't good anymore so I only do freeweights now, but I do 6 reps with 110# dumbells. This incident was 7-8 years ago when I was a little better and humping that winch and mount up the hill and trying to jam the receiver into the socket was heart breaking. And there were two of us. Because of the mud--and I had a plastic cap on the end of the receiver--we couldn't get the pin in and someone had to come back and winch us up the hill.
After that I took off the front receiver mount and made a permanent front mount. I carry a come-along for those times I need to pull backwards a little or keep it from flopping all the way over after tipping. My truck is still wired for the rear winch so I could, in theory, get another winch and keep it in a multi-mount. But usually I saw where I wanted to go and forward help gets me there.