Multidirectional Winch Mount on Spare Drawbar

[profdant139]

We had to solve a tricky problem -- pulling our little trailer up onto our short driveway at a 45 degree angle into a tight space, with no way to pull it up with the truck hitch. After a lot of trial and error, we solved that problem by mounting the winch to the back of the truck and running the cable to a pulley mounted into the driveway with a drop-in bolt. The pulley guides the trailer into place.

But while we were solving that problem, we stumbled across another solution to a problem we haven't had yet -- how to realign the winch when we can't get the truck into perfect position? I developed a winch mount that allows me to rotate the winch over a range of 180 degrees, so that I can "point" the winch in three different directions. The workmanship is not beautiful, but the whole assembly is very strong -- here is a blog post with several pictures:

Multidirectional Winch Mount on Spare Drawbar

[Peg_Leg]

Tree's were 12" dia and less cleaning out fence rows. Strap 4-5' above ground double line pull but the truck was anchored to a big oak tree with 25' of 3/8" chain. These were all trees that could be pushed over with a 5000 Ford tractor w/bucket. What burnt out the armature was trying to either pull out or rip through a 8" grape vine root. With the winch the ground wasn't left all tore up.

[profdant139]

Govertime, the load is very small -- the trailer weighs 2500 lb, and it is rolling up a smooth gentle slope. Peg Leg, I am amazed that an 8000 lb winch could pull down a tree! You must have had the strap attached way up at the top of the trunk to develop leverage?

[Peg_Leg]

My 8,000 lb Warn winch has fairlead rollers for such applications. I also carry 2 pulleys for high stress situations.

When I burnt out the armature, pulling down trees years ago, Warn didn't even have records as to how old my winch was. Local electric shop rewound the armature.

[govertime]

Very creative solution, impressive.

Wihtout knowing the size of the load, be aware that in this setup the bolt at the pulley point and all the bolts on the winch setup are being tested by their shear strength, not tensile, since force is being pallied on its axis.

I'd consider a large eye hook for the pulley point and not using the seam in the driver. Small points though, well done.