Winch

Tow hook protruding through airdam.

I helped Jack reinstall his winch underneath the front bumper of his Suburban this afternoon. It was a bit of a pain. We set the winch on a cart with a light duty hydraulic lift table, wheeled it under the front bumper and raised it up. Now we have to insert two mounting bolts on each side. Each bolt has to go through the winch support, a couple of solid steel spacers, the tow hook and then screw into a hole in the frame. Except. The hole in the frame is not threaded. There is bar of steel sitting loose in the frame that has two threaded holes. It has been rattling around in the frame every since Jack took the winch off for repair which was like a month ago. This bar needs to be positioned so that the threaded holes are directly above the holes in the frame. It took some poking and prodding with a pencil to get it into position. Now the trick is to get a bolt in the hole without dislodging the captive bar. Put the rear bolt in but leave out the spacers and the tow hook, that way there are only three pieces that need to lined up to get the bolt started. Once we had those started it was easy to run the front bolts through the pile of requisite pieces and get it started. Then we pulled out the rear bolt, pivoted the spacers and tow hook into position and reinserted the rear bolt.

Got the winch all bolted up, but we need to get the end of the cable out through the feed hole in the front. The winch repair man said no problem, just cut the retaining strap and pop the end through the hole. We wrestle with it for a bit, but it's not happening. Off comes the winch, but even now we can't get the end through the feed hole. We have to take the winch loose from the mounting bracket. Then we get to go through the whole mounting procedure again. Thanks, Mr. winch repair man.