Winches

I know we have a member on here who has had some winch mounts made up for the front of the Freelander, but wondering if anyone has fitted them to the rear?

I've seen some brackets that bolt up to the tow bar, now i'm sure these would be more than adequate for my purposes, but at present, I don't have a tow bar.

Could it be feasible to fit a winch in the cubby box under the floor & make a cut out for the cable? I'm thinking along the lines of a winch with separate relay box, so that can mounted out the way in the corner of the load area, the winch fitted to a mounting plate upside down & a compact silencer to give more room underneath.

Or would I just be better off fitting a tow bar & getting the winch bracket to fit to it?

Main use will be pulling logs through the woodland I manage & the odd car that may get stuck on the access track ... certainly no more than 2t, even adding drag to the weight.

I can't use a Tirfor or other manual winch, due to having a knackered right arm.

I would fit a tow bar and fit one to that if you fit it into the chubby box then you are asking for problem as you will rip the floor out .

How do you propose to fix it if you put it in the cubby box? Have you see what happened to the Top Gear Mini when a winch was mounted to the wings instead of the chassis??

You need to have it mounted to both sides of the chassis, get a receiver hitch, and make up a platform which bolts to the hitch to mount the winch, then its demountable and you can store it in the boot.

Alternatively, if you don't understand the principles of winching its probably safer to let someone else do it.

I'm going to lob a spanner in the works and say a rear winch could be fitted into that void with a little ingenuity,
You would need to build a tray that spans the width of the chassis rails and re route the exhaust system some rather strong bracing would be needed too
But I think it could be done

Of course it can, its been done before

Thanks for the replies, sounds like tow bar mounted is the way to go then.

being a commercial body, there'd be plenty of room for the extra bracing required to add onto the mounting plate without interfering with seating ... Don't. Worry, I wouldn't have been so daft as to just mount it to the floor pan, although I have seen people do that & wonder why it's pulled out, same with roll hoops bolted to the floor of a Landy rear tub. Was worth asking the question though.

I'm experienced with using winches, both off roading & I did done more than enough years on accident & breakdown recovery, including full training of recovery techniques.

SES88 said:

Of course it can, its been done before

Click to expand...

That I would like to see that space in the floor is handy I keep bungees and stuff in there but a winch would be more useful tucked under that space, do you have any pics of fitted units could be a nice addition in the future

RO51 said:

That I would like to see that space in the floor is handy I keep bungees and stuff in there but a winch would be more useful tucked under that space, do you have any pics of fitted units could be a nice addition in the future

Click to expand...

I meant a permanent tray between the chassis rails where a towbar would normally mount

There's photos on google somewhere, came across them ages ago

SES88 said:

I meant a permanent tray between the chassis rails where a towbar would normally mount

There's photos on google somewhere, came across them ages ago

Click to expand...

So did I, nice to see we are on the same page lol I wouldn't mind building a winch bumper something steel to replace the plastic would be nice

proper way:

Knew you'd be along to post a photo for me

Those ones were demountable weren't they?

See now that kinda ruined the departure angle a little but if it was mounted under the rear floor with a fairlead in the rear bumper....

Yup, those have a little bit not standard mounting, but G4s use a standard 2" receiver as we both have.

On proper lifted car angle is not a problem, and if you got mount a front one, the rear one is smaller from that on photo (CT use the same for front and rear)