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Ideal winch placement on my blazer... questions - and a few crappy pics

scouthead

scouthead

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So I've had it in my head that mounting my winch "foot forward" is a stronger setup than just plopping it down on a horizontal surface...
Agree? No F-ing way? I started thinking about it and now I'm not sure...

Anyways I want to fit this thing between my frame rails and try to keep it up and out of the way.
I have to re-clock the motor and gearbox if I want the feet of the housings facing forward....No problem. So I sit the thing on a jack and push it into place, and the fairlead is going to be way too low.

So I can mount my winch in front of the grill and way higher, but then my bumper will get huge.
Or, I can move the fairlead to the top of the drum instead of the bottom... but I will have to spin the winch around so that the cable is pointed the right direction again. also not a big deal (so what if the stickers are hard to see)

So my main question is will this affect the structural strength of the winch? As long as the mounting pad is forward and the pulling forces are going down through the feet, and not across them in shear, the winch shouldn't care if it's pulling off the top or bottom of the drum, right?? And would that be stronger or weaker than just mounting it horizontal?


1.jpg

2.jpg

diagram.JPG
 
I know with some winches it is important that the cable is spooled on in the correct direction as the clutch isn't designed to have force applied to it in the opposite direction, so make sure you do some homework on your particular winch!
 
Yea one guy on here did a hidden winch and spooled it wrong. I believe it was going the wong way and was creating to much heat and could have burned up the winch. This is exactly what I was planning on doing cause I have a warn 9000 so I would have to mount the feet forward. I'll have to look at it this weekend and see how it's going to sit between the frame rails
 
Someone on another website mentioned something about spooling the winch wrong. ??? I don't want to respool the winch... once the housing has been rotated so that the feet are pointing forward and out through my bumper, What does the winch care if it is rightside up or not?
I pretty much intend to flip the whole winch with the cabe still attached and spooled on the drum...
This would make the motor and gearbox trade sides (and then be upside down), but they are reclockable. If the cable never comes off the drum and the entire winch gets flipped, the cable and drum should spool out and into each other just the same as before right?

winch flip.JPG
 
If I were to respool the cable the oposite direction on my drum then that would mean I would have to spool out to retract the cable, and spool in to get the cable out. Right?

And when you spool out (under power), the brake is on, and the winch has to overpower the brake to turn... so if the drum got respooled in the oposite direction, the brake would be on all the time when you were winching IN... sounds like A LOT OF HEAT...

Is that what you guys were refering to?

Someone also told me that the way the cable is made (right or left hand twist) determines how it needs to be spooled on the drum... ??
 
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All that matters is that it feeds out from the underside of the spool.

Light duty winches always feed from underneath, cranes and heavy heavy duty are over the top.
 
Stomis said:
All that matters is that it feeds out from the underside of the spool.
Click to expand...

Don't know about that...
Anyways with the foot pads on the winch facing forward, it will feed from the "side" (when the spool is full of cable - on the first layer of cable it will feed from much closer to the center of the drums axis and will between the foot pads))....
only way for me to get it to feed from the bottom would be to mount it like how it is set up out of the box - on a horizontal surface with the footpads facing the ground (first drawing in the first diagram)




Stomis said:
Light duty winches always feed from underneath, cranes and heavy heavy duty are over the top.
Click to expand...

Totally different. I think most heavy duty winches like that are supported from the spindle axes, not from a cast body that houses and includes that drum.
Had an idiot at work forget to set the brake on our 80' Garland one time... So he jammed the safety lock into place when the thing started to retract... stripped some teeth off one off the spool gears, and really jammed the safety into place. That crane had many spools and about half of them were feeding from the top and the other half from the bottom - but all of them had an axle going through them and were supported by big bushings directly on that axle.
 
scouthead said:
Don't know about that...
Anyways with the foot pads on the winch facing forward, it will feed from the "side" (when the spool is full of cable - on the first layer of cable it will feed from much closer to the center of the drums axis and will between the foot pads))....
only way for me to get it to feed from the bottom would be to mount it like how it is set up out of the box - on a horizontal surface with the footpads facing the ground (first drawing in the first diagram)






Totally different. I think most heavy duty winches like that are supported from the spindle axes, not from a cast body that houses and includes that drum.
Had an idiot at work forget to set the brake on our 80' Garland one time... So he jammed the safety lock into place when the thing started to retract... stripped some teeth off one off the spool gears, and really jammed the safety into place. That crane had many spools and about half of them were feeding from the top and the other half from the bottom - but all of them had an axle going through them and were supported by big bushings directly on that axle.
Click to expand...

idk m y buddy worked for a crane company and thats what he told me when i got my winch.
 
Ah, if you are just flipping the winch over and re-clocking things, you should be good to go! I thought you were going to switch the clutch and motor from side to side then re-spool it when I first read your post
 
Sweet!

somebody posted a good thread about mounting winches with their feet forward... Sounds like the only time it is not better is when there is drain problems with the motor... most of the info sounded like it was coming fom someone who workedat warn. Even with the drain problems, sounded like the winch itself would be better off foot forward (even integrated solenoid winches if you had the room). If I'm back on Mud later i'll pull the link over here.
 
I put my 9000 feet forward and clocked the clutch housing...
 
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