Rear mounted winch with cable routed to the front end

[Haf-e]

I saw a video from Classic Sue who makes competition parts for Pinzgauers and at one point in the video there was a photo of a pair of rear mounted winches in the bed of the Pinz 712.

Classic Sue Pinz Rear Winch.jpg (246.73 KiB) Viewed 9650 times

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=36Ca56g118g

I also saw another photo of his Pinz with a tow cable coming out the grill -





Any thoughts on this? I would like to add a winch but not on the front of a 710 which is already nose heavy. Good idea or not?

One note - This truck is apparently one he built up for a customer - here is a write-up on it:

http://www.gelaendewagen.at/artikel16/p ... ue_108.php

"On the resulting open loading area are two powerful winches mounted. The first has a passage forward, the second a backward. The massive roll-over bar has two large "eyelets" at the front-top corners, through which the winch ropes can be guided, if the car must be secured sideways or it has to be re-erected after a drowning."

[GenevaPinz]

This is a nifty, race-tested setup, but it does come at the expense of a lot of space in the rear cargo area. Having the winch attached to the body instead of the frame, I believe there is more modification than meets the eye. Same for the safe routing of winch rope to the front grille.
I prefer having a modified tail cone with a winch, which comes at the sacrifice of some degrees (but not that many) of departure angle. The winch is more exposed to the elements than in the bed, but not more than in a typical front mount situation. Dave Dunn had one on his Pinz Cow, and I borrowed the idea from him for my 710M.

[Haf-e]

Would you post some photos of your installation? So you modified the rear "cone" - that might be the best option off all. Did you do a front routing of the cable as well?

Thanks!

[David Dunn]

This a pic of the Pink Cow.
The tailcone needs to be milled down to 25mm (iirc), that allows the use of the original bolts and doesn't interfere with the operation of the parking brake. I also mounted a 2" receiver into the tray and it maintains the body to tailcone bolt. Unfortunately, I have never been able to locate the fab pics from the day.. I do remember that the bottom plate of the U tray was angled up to increase the angle of departure.

I also had a 2nd winch in the front on the PC. I had for years thought of spooling a winch from the rear to front but never dug deep into it, but could be done with pulleys.

[David Dunn]

This album on my photobucket has a few pics of the mount and the 2nd page has pics of the basic tray with the holes for the tailcone bolts. The cutouts at the top and bottom allowed for a slightly smaller overall tray height and ease to mount fasteners. The body mount bolt are in different location between the gas and diesel Pinzes.
A plate was welded to the open end of the channel for mounting the fairlead.
http://s10.photobucket.com/user/dsd277/ ... t=2&page=1

[GenevaPinz]

Here are a few pictures of the rear mount which was done by Gut in Zurich, providing them with quite a few pics of the Pinz Cow for inspiration.

They did not build a complete "box" structure, which made the top part (holding the pintle) a lot less sturdy than David's design, and they recommended that it only be used for the lightest of on-road towing applications, which I was not happy about (picture taken at the end of a winter when the truck did travel on gritted road. Instant rust as a result...).

...so I ended up modifying the part that supports the fairlead (and which is bolted at the bottom with the four bolts that hold the winch) to extend it up so that it also bolts at the top with the 4 bolts that hold the pintle, thus closing the "box" and with 1 centimetre (over a third of an inch) thick steel, significantly rigidifying the whole assembly. It is the green triangular part between the fairlead and the pintle on this picture (not the best picture of the winch, but I don't have another one and it's dark outside...)
At that point I had repainted the winch brake cover and added a thin steel plate to try and protect the winch from dirt/gravel/water projected from below.

[David Dunn]

Jan,
Definitely an interesting take on my design, very pretty.
It has been over 12 years since I had designed and made the mount, but would like to inject a few thoughts that had gone into its design ( what I can remember that is )

I had the tailcone milled down to approx 1” (25mm) so the winch tray was mounted directly to the centraltube using the original bolts. Only the pressure plate area for the parking brake was retained.

My first thought was for the tray to only be wide enough to fit the bolt pattern of the tailcone but did not like the idea of the winch being exposed to damage from rocks and debris on rock climbs, hence the full width tray to protect the complete winch..

Towing was always part of the requirements. The top portion of the channel was notched for the receiver tube to extent a bit above the tray and back into it, just a little behind where the rear body mount was in the tailcone. The receiver tube was welded on both side of the tray, and on the notched in the fairlead plate on the rear. This way all stresses are on the central tube and body as originally design.

As you can see in the last pic, the tray was not light, but in the rear of the truck it didn't need to be and strength and protection were key. That pic was of a 2nd tray that I had made and sold a few years back.

[VinceAtReal4x4s]

Just mount it up front. It's far easier to do, costs 10 times less, it won't ruin the resale value of the truck and it doesn't need to be heavy at all. Use a mount like the one I added where it's just enough to hold the winch. Andre makes them. Use syn. rope and an alum. fairlead and you've added very little weight.

That set up above is useful for racing but not much else that I can think of. In recovery operations it's a dangerous approach I think. You need to be able to see your winch and deal with the clutch, etc..

[waterdog]

Just mount it up front. It's far easier to do, costs 10 times less, it won't ruin the resale value of the truck and it doesn't need to be heavy at all. Use a mount like the one I added where it's just enough to hold the winch. Andre makes them. Use syn. rope and an alum. fairlead and you've added very little weight.

That set up above is useful for racing but not much else that I can think of. In recovery operations it's a dangerous approach I think. You need to be able to see your winch and deal with the clutch, etc..

is just the airflow restiction what worries me... a front bumper winch takes the whole grill space!!

[David Dunn]

Vince, I’m not sure if you’re picking on the OP’s example or the Pink Cow.
The Pink Cow did have a front winch also. For me, the rear winch was an exercise in ingenuity ( to meet all MY criterias) , creativity and the fun of making it. The main objective was to maintain a trailering ability and capacity, and used primarily to load dead vehicles (or whatever) onto the trailer. As with my other truck at the time, the rear winch is extremely useful.
The resale of the truck was enhanced, as nothing is changed to the truck and I had a 2nd tailcone for the machining, completely bolt-on and reversible. As anyone that has serviced their E brake on a Pinz, not too difficult to remove. My only expense was the folded steel for the tray and my time. 42 lbs is not much weigh really, the front mount weighed in at 20 lbs, and made it in a ½ hour with materials laying around the shop… super easy with a 40t metal muncher, cold saw and a welder. Tthough it may look complicated and expensive, the rear winch setup probably wouldn't cost much more than what people are paying for a custom bumper w/bullbar and winch.
A front winch mount is almost always easier,dead unused space, takes up no rear storage room and is pulling in the direction you usually want to go. Spooling to the opposite end of the vehicle requires some engineering to avoid vehicle components and the winch mounted so there is no undue stress on the frame and mounting points ( as in the front of the Pinz where a front winch spooled under the truck to the rear will pull the the front extension down).

There are many arguments for where a winch should be, but it always comes down to what you want it for and if for recovery, which way you want to recover yourself, forward or back ( though racing, its almost always forward).
Unimogs have had options for front, middle and rear winches for almost forever. Land Rover 101FC had PTO mid mounted winches that could be spooled either direction ( though rear pull recover couldn’t be done with the use of the wheels). The US FMTVs use a hydraulic mid mounted winch that also can be spooled front or rear.

Oh, btw, as an added thought. The added weight to the rear by the tray may be a lot less, as it replaced most of mass of the cast tailcone.

[VinceAtReal4x4s]

The airflow thing has been discussed to the end of the earth on here. It has absolutely no effect on airflow at all and is 1000% safe to mount a winch like that. There's evidence of 40 years of mounting winches up front on air cooled pinzgauers as proof. It's has never had an effect, even on the Croatia racing truck which was tested further than anyone on here can put a Pinz through after three races and lots of road miles. The fan way overpowers any "blockage" that is perceived.

I was referring to the bed mount and making a path to run a cable, etc..

[Jimm391730]

is just the airflow restiction what worries me...

As Vince has said, airflow restriction is an non-issue. With so many trucks in the desert southwest, often running around in 110+ F (45+ C) temps, no one has reported a problem.

[one2many]

Ditto from down under...overheating due to airflow restriction isn't a problem with a front mounted winch.
I've run my 712K in steep mountain ranges for long periods on 40*C plus days and even when pulling a disabled vehicle up this terrain in this weather didn't overheat the little air cooled work horse. Oil temp and pressure remain stable and even across all conditions I've put her through so far.
Surprisingly I've found the Pinz to be more reliable in hot conditions than any water cooled vehicle I've owned and I believe I've had it in situations where most water cooled engines would have needed rest periods to keep from overheating or losing oil pressure.

When I travel alone (only vehicle) and I plan on finding some challenging tracks I throw a Tirfor winch in in case I need to stabilise the vehicle or recover it from the rear but I've never had to use it so it's really just a bit of insurance.

[Brady 712k]

Here's my winch setup. I used a modified winch Mount from Andre. I had to modify it because I have a large body 12000 pound Warn winch on there.
There is no issue with airflow!