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Hidden Winch

Have the extension under the hood to attach the remote .. will take a pic tomorrow and post ..rough country 12K winch :
Nice..1st time ive seen it against a black front end like mine.
How bout the freespool lever access?
 
Nice..1st time ive seen it against a black front end like mine.
How bout the freespool lever access?
Yes very difficult to access… so had to have a extension port installed under the hood , the remote connects to it ..I’ll post a pic and / or video of how it works .
 

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Have the extension under the hood to attach the remote .. will take a pic tomorrow and post ..rough country 12K winch :
Looks good, wonder if they have a wireless winch remote option for the 12k or 9,500lb winches, I'm still throwing it around on buying the front and rear bumpers but really want them
 
This guy Casey does Recovery for a living. In one of his videos he flat out says that Warn winches have always failed him. And that Harbor Freight Badlands winches have never given him problems.


This HF Badlands winch is a 12,000 lb capacity with a Remote for only $550.

 
Here is a more conventional winch Tray, one that is not a "hidden" type. But I cannot find any images of exactly how this looks on a TB, how far it protrudes out in front, or how low it mounts. Several videos I've seen of off-roading show that a winch mounted too low would scrape the ground at higher climb angles.

 
A more affordable, easier-to-install and still "hidden" solution might be a Front Receiver. Then a Receiver Winch mount. This would allow using the Winch at either the front or the rear of the truck. Keeping the Winch stowed in a Tub in the bed would keep it out of the weather.

Front Receiver for a Trail Boss:

Winch rated at 9,000 lbs.:

Winch Hitch (receiver) mount:

Optional Wireless Remote:

I have for years carried a "Winch-In-A-Bag" rated at 2,500 lbs pull in my 2011 Silverado. Only needed it once and it did the job, in deep snow. The Receiver Mount solution would require the same Long, external "Jumper Cables" wiring, but that worked pretty well for the Winch-In-A-Bag.

Of course, now that I would have TWO receivers that require Covers, I might be needing these:

 
You both brought up good points against it. I am trying to gather data points that can help to determine if the trade-offs are worth it.

I asked for a lot more things that just failure rate but you seem not willing to answer/talk to any of them? Why? Have you actually not needed a winch in all the off roading you do? It does not look like you have added a winch to your current truck, why not? If you had winches on your previous trucks, how often did you need them for a recovery? How often did you need access to the winch other than the free spool lever? You have knowledge here that I do not have so please educate me.

It takes 6 bolts to get access to it so at home this is a non issue. On the trail there is a chance that it could be not possible to access the bolts depending on the situation and that would suck bad. How often is what will make or break the kind of setup.
Sorry for the delayed response. I do not have time to write a tutorial on recovery. It is a complex subject and involves far more than just winching. When I get time I will start a recovery thread so we can hear input from everyone. Just because I have done it does not make me an expert. But I will contribute what I can.

Yes I had a winch on an old CJ5 Jeep. Used it more to recover other vehicles than my own, very common if you have one. No I do not have one on my Trail Boss and might not ever put one on. I carry a ton of other recovery gear I will explain later.

There is a ton of good recovery and winch videos on YouTube. If you check out
Matt's Off Road Recovery chanel you will see that as a professional recovery operator he has winches but he does not like them. He uses them when he needs them. He is able to do almost all of his recoveries with nothing but a kinetic energy rope and a proper recovery vehicle. Kinetic energy ropes have become a game changer in recovery. Recovery can happen many ways without a winch. It often starts with a shovel, I would not leave home without one.

@Wakinvol is giving you good advice.

Kind Regards,

Steve
 
Wakinvol's first paragraph did not address the question that he thought he was but actually was a good reason to have even the hidden winch.

I like Matts videos. I have seen him use winches multiple times without issues. These are valuable data points. Your concerns are very valid and have to be taken into account when deciding if this is the correct winch for a given owner. To help make this decision, I personally like to use data vs perception to drive these kinds of decisions. This is why I keep asking for examples and such. Your perception seems to be that they fail a lot and you need access at all times. My question is does the data support this perception?

Let me provide a quick example of perception vs data. A while back my dayshift counterpart came to me to talk about the qualification/testing frequency for our tools. The concern his team had provided was that they were doing all the quals and my team was not doing their fair share. When the data was pulled, it turned out that the quals were being done at a 50/50 rate between our teams. It turned out that there were work weeks where one shift did more quals than the other shift but over the course of a month, it broke down to that 50/50 ratio. These weeks of them doing more of the quals than my team was why they had built the perception of them doing all the quals. Data just did not support this. This is just one of the reasons I prefer to use data vs perception.

The bottom line is if you have no winch, you have no option to use one. The hidden winch provides that option. Each owner needs to consider the risks vs the rewards here.
 
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I'm gonna start a thread about my project to install a winch on my Trail Boss. I'm going to use a Receiver Mount, so that the winch can be used either at the front or the rear of the truck. And the winch can be kept in the bed when not in use. Here in Colorado I needed and/or used a winch twice on my 2011 Silverado. The places where I needed a winch were such that using a Kinetic Rope was not an option. Locations typically involve either deep snow on narrow twisting roads, or steep inclines with large rocks.
 
Wakinvol's first paragraph did not address the question that he thought he was but actually was a good reason to have even the hidden winch.

I like Matts videos. I have seen him use winches multiple times without issues. These are valuable data points. Your concerns are very valid and have to be taken into account when deciding if this is the correct winch for a given owner. To help make this decision, I personally like to use data vs perception to drive these kinds of decisions. This is why I keep asking for examples and such. Your perception seems to be that they fail a lot and you need access at all times. My question is does the data support this perception?

Let me provide a quick example of perception vs data. A while back my dayshift counterpart came to me to talk about the qualification/testing frequency for our tools. The concern his team had provided was that they were doing all the quals and my team was not doing their fair share. When the data was pulled, it turned out that the quals were being done at a 50/50 rate between our teams. It turned out that there were work weeks where one shift did more quals than the other shift but over the course of a month, it broke down to that 50/50 ratio. These weeks of them doing more of the quals than my team was why they had built the perception of them doing all the quals. Data just did not support this. This is just one of the reasons I prefer to use data vs perception.

The bottom line is if you have no winch, you have no option to use one. The hidden winch provides that option. Each owner needs to consider the risks vs the rewards here.
Just go buy the hidden winch setup and enjoy. Sounds like you have it all figured out anyway.
 
Just go buy the hidden winch setup and enjoy. Sounds like you have it all figured out anyway.
I do not have it all figured out . That is why I am asking for your guys input. I value what you have to say. I am just asking for data that both of you seem unwilling to provide. You both seem to have your minds made up that this is bad yet you won't provide data to support that it is bad.

Both of you seem to be taking my questions as challenges to your posts but that is just not the case here. I have repeatedly stated that your concerns are real and valid concerns. The data points help to determine a risk level. Like say if it fails 1 time out of 2 uses vs say 1 time out of 100 uses. The first is 50% of the time and the second is 1% of the time. 50% would be horrible and would be a hard no. 1% however is not that bad.
 
I do not have it all figured out . That is why I am asking for your guys input. I value what you have to say. I am just asking for data that both of you seem unwilling to provide. You both seem to have your minds made up that this is bad yet you won't provide data to support that it is bad.

Both of you seem to be taking my questions as challenges to your posts but that is just not the case here. I have repeatedly stated that your concerns are real and valid concerns. The data points help to determine a risk level. Like say if it fails 1 time out of 2 uses vs say 1 time out of 100 uses. The first is 50% of the time and the second is 1% of the time. 50% would be horrible and would be a hard no. 1% however is not that bad.
I have no data in hard numbers. they don't exist. I have a lifetime of experience enjoying wilderness and 4wheeling. The world is gray, not black and white. Every situation is different. i don't try to sway people to do anything. It's your truck have fun with it.

You say "it is only 6 bolts". I suggest you go remove them in your driveway and think about how it would be when your laying in mud. I had to change my tow hooks. Since one of them had been under load the bolt was messed up and had to be replaced. It was not an easy fix. When I am stuck I want to get out of the jam. Taking half my front end off in the desert will never be part of my game plan.

I stated my opinion on that set up. To me it would be ridiculous to bury a winch behind half my front end. I believe that set up is designed for looks. It is not practical for use in the real world. That's my opinion. I don't get into ridiculous arguments on forums. Your beating a dead horse asking for numbers no one has.

Steve
 
For a hidden winch you have to build your own, for the bottom plate that the winch mounts to you have to use 3/8" steel. The winch bumpers that use thinner metal are junk and will warp. This is where winches fail most often when the mounting plate twists and the housing on the winch cracks/explodes. I welded my own hidden winch and it works great, the hook hides behind the front license plate. Furthermore, don't trust a product that mounts to anything but the frame rails with multiple bolting points, they manufacture these trucks with very thin metal bumpers and the crumple zone means 1/8" frame rails in the front of the subframe.
 

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