Last updated:  2004.05.18

 ©  Text and Photo: Frode H. Haaland

 

Fitting winch and winch bumper

GEW 9000S & "Scorpion Racing Extreme" bumper on Discovery 1990 200tdi

 

Fitting a winch on an offroad vehicle must be the ultimate lifestyle expression! It's on top of any offroaders list for Santa Claus, even though the vehicle will not be able to drive any other terrain after you've flogged off two weeks wages or so. In terms of ability, it is wiser to upgrade the suspension to for instance dislocating springs etc. 

But a winch will enable you to go safer offroad alone, and that's the reason for Otto getting his 9000lbs winch - in an italian design winch bumper.

 

Fitting a winch on Discovery and Range Rover
On a series vehicle, a winch might be fitted very cheaply, by a simple steel plate bolted down to the chassis. A Defender is more difficult, but on the Discovery and Range Rover, you're deep into your pocket even before adding the winch itself.

A winch weighs in at say 35kg, and when you add the weight of a winchbumper or a winchtray, you're adding maybe 60kg extra far in front of the front axle. This gives an unwanted distribution of weight whatever installation you choose. Some mounts are worse than others - with the winch mounted seemingly far in front of the bumper. The Law of Physics states you should have the winch/mount as close to the front axle as possible, and as low as possible.

An under-vehicle winch tray is probably the cheapest option, available from Bearmach for ~£140 This will fit between the chassis legs, and the wirerope will come out under the bumper and through the spoiler (which can be left on the vehicle). The weight comes low down, and far back - very good!) But the winchdrum is not visible, so you can not see how the wire is being spooled on. 

I opted for a dedicated winch bumper, but got rather confused by the design offered from various sources. 

As seen on this picture, the Bearmach BA175 winchbumper protrude far forward, thus both disturbing the approach angle, and also moving the weight of winch+winchbumper even further forwards than would have been possible. As the combined weight is pretty high, this design is not what you need - even if it is a very simple construction.
Best approach angle were offered by an italian designed winch bumper (designed by Equipe 4x4), now copied and sold by Scorpion Racing as their own bumper, after what appears to be longlasting controversies (browsing the webistes, I gather most of the stuff sold by Scorpion is actually designed by Equipe 4x4).

Equipe 4x4 does not offer the bumper these days, as they're working on an improvement, but it is planned to become available this summer. Should be interesting to see which improvements they come up with.

The bumper has built in hi-lift jacking points, predrilled holes for fitting Scorpions (i.e. Equipe 4x4) own swivelling recovery eyes, but no proviso for fitting recovery shackles.

The bumper purchased and installed is Scorpion Racing Extreme winch bumper.

Take a look on this picture, and compare with Bearmachs BA175 above. This approach angle and weight distribution is what you get for your money!

 

The winch

Deciding size of winch, is always a question of compromises: The more powerful winches are more expensive, heavier, and quite often also slower due to the gearing. So it is not a question of buying the most powerful winch you can find - but it must be more than strong enough to pull your vehicle.

As a rule of thumb, multiply the weight of the laden vehicle by a factor between 1.5 and 2; Warn says 1,5x vehicle gross weight, though others advice 2x - especially if the winch will be used more often.

A Discovery weighs in at ~2000kg, so a ~3000kg winchpull should do for an empty vehicle - but then add the weight of all the gear you carry, and the bottom line is usually advised to a 3620kg winch (8000lbs). I chose a 9000lbs/4080kg winch, even though a 8000lbs/3620kg undoubtedly would have sufficed.
There's many brands of winches available these days, and most of these have one common characteristic: They are extremely expensive. So those of us who are not intending to do a lot of winching cannot afford to have one fitted as a backup only. But there's a few more brands coming up that's more competitvely priced. From Peoples Republic of China comes two (on the European market) relatively new brands offering complete lines of winches: Runhua and T-max. 

Both are being made in Hangzhou in the Zheijang province southwest from Shanghai, both are competitively priced, and both have a high quality. 

I chose a rather strong winch from Jinhua Runhua, the GEW9000S. A Warn is of course better, but then: do you really winch so much that you really need to flog of that much more money? I certainly will not! 

The Jinhua Runhua winches have a very nice high quality finish, and seems to be of a high quality alltogether. CE labeled and ISO9001 certified production, translates into a uniform quality. The GEW range of winches are Runhuas Heavy Duty range, featuring series wound motors, while their budget alternative KEW are the simpler permanent magnet type.

The motor is 3.6HP, and with a gearing  of 294:1 on the GEW9000 this means it is not particularly fast - line speed is down at 5.2 m/min with no load (their 8000lbs winch has a speed of 7.3 m/min). That's the price paid for a purchasing price on 1/3rd or mabe 1/4th of a Warn.

The chosen GEW9000S has the solenoids in a bridge over the wiredrum, giving a clean, compact and modern design - and also seems to act as a useful step if you need to reach high. As discussed later, this type is really not appliccable for the chosen winchbumper.

The winch came with all the accessories needed, as well as bolts, nuts, washers, locking washers, and quite good mounting instructions (inclusive torque-settings). What it did not include, is usually not included with any winches: Instructions on stretching the wirerope before using the winch in anger.

 

Fitting the bumper
The bumper came in a crate that was so big it hardly fitted inside the Discovery! Tilting the passenger seat forward, folding the rear seat once, and it just fitted inside the cabin. Plan for this if you pick it up in your own vehicle!

Inside, the powdercoated bumper was wrapped in protective plastic, and came with two bags of bolts, tubes, washers and nuts. 

Looking at the detailing, there's a lot of welding, bending, bracing and bracket'ring on this bumper. Lots of fine details for anyone into backwards engineering.

But there were no fitting instructions supplied. This were faxed next day, but it wasn't too useful as it didn't have any pictures or drawings of what fitted where. For V8 powered vehicles, the instructions are probably more useful, as it described moving oilcooler lines and so on... 

They advised to "tip it backwards, and bring it up from underneath". Trying this, I soon found they were quite wrong on what constituted the simplest way of doing it...

After removing the bumper (with the washerjets/tubing), headlamp surrounds and grille, the new bumper was put onto the trolleyjack, and raised to the necessary height, the rear brackets, tubes and bolts put on first, then the front ones. 
The fitting instructions did not include the torque settings for the mounting bolts. 

There was a bit confusion, as no drawing were available, and there were 4 more tubings than shown here - of which there were no use...
Picture right hand upper, shows loosely assempled fittings and bolts, winchbumper still resting on trolley jack; you can see the amount of hardware used to bolt it down: there's the two bolts up front which use same holes in chassis as the standard bumper (the tie down ring protruding through the bumper must be removed). At its rearmost end, the new bumper is clamped onto the chassis using two bolts each side, along with some bracketry to spread the forces.

 

Plastic closing panel
The plastic closing panel, fitting in front of the radiator, stopping water/dirt to be thrown up from below, has to be cut in its entire length, as the winchtray is so close to the bulkhead front. 

As can be seen on the picture left, there's only ~13 cm from back end of tray to the bulkhead front (which means it should be possible to move the winchtray even further back...). 
First, the closing panel has to be removed - one bolt each end of the panel...and three or more under it, attaching to the bulkhead front.
Checking the size and then mark where to cut...

Cut the long line on the closing panel to size...I used a knife, and broke the plastic along the cut.
The bumper brackets are a bit too high, so the panel needs two cut-outs to make it fit - one each side. 

Then the closing panel is fitted and it is all ready for the cutting of the grill - as the winch is virtually in the middle of the grille, it will have to be cut out to allow for the winch.

 

Cutting the grille
On this picture you can clearly see the need for cutting the grille: The solenoid bridge is very large, and will eat away a large piece of the grille. 

I just put the winch into the tray, loose bolts, not bolting it down yet.
I used an angle grinder with a cutting disc, but a Dremel might have been more handy (and slow...)
The first and largest bit of the grille is gone, and now there's no turning back.
The cables are thick, and even if they're soft, they can't be bent enough to safeguard from chafing. So a larger hole was cut...
Now, the grille suits the winch (I thought...). 

And doesn't it look the part?

But then I wanted to test the winch, which is when I found I couldn't enter the socket for the remote control... This is on the side of the winch - where you find the grille...

An even bigger part of the grille needs to be cut away - and this part of it really makes it look silly...a large hole for nothing (until you need to plug in the remote controller that is...). In fact, I find it so bad I intend to swap for a traditional type of solenoid (mounted high onto the grille), thus I need a new/ 2.hand grille). Such a setup will be as close to a concealed mount possible, while you can still see the drum when spooling.

  
  Now, this is a neat installation (apart from the above mentioned hole-in-the-grille). 

The winch sits far back, not all the way in the front of the grille as on for instance the Bearmach bumper. 

The winch and bumper is all situated in front of the front axle, giving a huge leverage of weight. This in-the-middle- of-the-grille construction from Equipe 4x4 gives the best possible weight distribution, also improving on the approach angle!

 

Fitting the winch
  The winch came complete with a beautifully finished roller fairlead, that bolts to the front of the bumper using supplied bolts, locking nuts and washers+springwashers. 
The winch tray is a very tight fit for the winch - part of the clever Equipe 4x4 design to get as good an approach angle as possible. My Runhua winch has a sliding clutch with the lever on the front of the winch - for which there is no room in the tray! If the winch has a lever on the top (e.g. Warn) or top/end (e.g. Superwinch), this will pose no problem. But then you'll have to reach inside the grille - or cut it to suit your fingers/hand. 

I had to file away 1/4th of it to be able to safely mount the winch and still be able to (dis)engage it. It's still a bit awkward to use the clutch, but I can live with it. 

  
Having cut the grille, I bolted down the winch (don't forget to do the fairlead first, as there's no room for your fingers and spanners after the winch is fixed).

 

The Result
The new winchbumper, incorporating a winch that is around 18 cm deep, actually sits closer to the bulkhead front/frontlights than the original bumper did. In fact it is so close that it seems the original headlamp washers cannot be used. 

The winch sits in the middle of the old plastic grille, giving an approach-angle that is just excellent.

The distribution of added weight, is probably as good as it gets if you opt for a winch up front. As this picture shows, the bumper sits really close. The ruler shows the front of the bumper sitting 12 cm in front of the headlampboxes (rear end of bumper: 6cm). Sorry - I forgot to check on the old and original bumper!

I give some critisism on the winchbumper, but nonetheless: I would have bought it again, and strongly advise others to the same - either as Scorpion, or as Equipe 4x4 - though the last one might have the edge over Scorpion due to their forthcoming improvements!

The huge piece of plastic grille cut away to accomodate the remote control, makes the innstallment not exactly neat. A more traditional winch, with a solenoid to be fitted onto the grille, would have been a nicer fitment on the chosen bumper. If the remote control socket were to fit on the front of the solenoidbridge, there would have been no problem, but on this type it is on the side...

And inside the vehicle, there's a new, black bag full of accessories to be carried at any time to be able to run the winch: remote controller, wheel chocks, gloves, tree trunk saver, swingaway snatchblock, and even more shackles.

 

Some Critisism

The bumper is of a very good design, and now that Equipe 4x4 is improving on it, there should be no reason fitting something else; though a few points are well worth mentioning:

1) Recovery point missing: For as much as £290 + vat + p&p you do not get front recovery points; you will have to purchase swivelling front recovery eyes at a price (the equivalent of ~£85 in Norway) to enable a simple recovery. At this price, I would have expected at least two holes drilled for fitting shackles until saving up for proper recovery eyes, or saving up for an Extreme Steering Guard, which does have drilled holes for attaching shackles. This is just not good enough. 

2) Where to put registration plates? I guess you're supposed to use a front registration plate on any vehicle in any country. But this bumper does not take that into account. Of course, you can drill a couple of holes, but then the powder coating is broken, and rust starts eating away. Or you can go the same way as with front recovery points: Purchase even more stuff from Scorpion: a plate bracket for fitting onto the roller fairlead of a clever design. Quite nice, indeed, but why no proviso for fitting the plate in the first place?

They seem to be quite eager to get our money, so they lure us into buying a design that force us to purchase even more stuff from them. Shame! The stuff is so good it shoudl have included the small points mentioned - or they should have advised on it.

3) Lack of information:  As to the information supplied, as shown in this article, there's much to hope for. 

- The fitting instructions were not of much help, they didn't even advice on torquesettings for the mounting hardware supplied. 

- On Scorpions website, there's no information on the bumper indicating a winch with solenoid-on-a-bridge is not really suitable for this type of bumper. 

- Also, the clutch lever on this winch, is really not compatible with this bumper, a choice of winch with a lever on top of the winch (like for instance Warn), would have been a better choice. Or the tray should have been 10mm deeper. 

- Realistically speaking it is not possible to use the original headlamp washers. But there is no information anywhere that you will lose the headlamp washerjets, nor any tips on how to circumvent this problem by for instance using second hand stuff from a scrapeyard. Nor have they drilled holes for fitting new jets. It should be easy for the manufacturer to allow for this and even supply the stuff needed to adapt the old headlamp washer arrangement.

This lack of information is too bad, as it's a simple thing to advice about on the site and in the package.  Furthermore, there's no prices on their site, and generally there's only lots of pictures (many of these from Equipe 4x4 who made at least most of the stuff earlier on). But none are really any good showing the uniqueness of the construction. This is really not what you should expect from a company having several pages of advertising each month in several Land Rover Magazines, selling innovative and high quality products everbody seems to be wanting these days...