Trailer Hitch Installed Winch

[dcmdon]

A vehicles tow rating normally has little to do with the strength of the actual receiver.

It's typically limited by cooling capacity, power, braking, or handling.

With that said, none of us have any idea at what point a receiver will fail so care should be taken if things get heavy.

I am interested in this option because I live in New England and spend about half the time in the winter in northern NH and the salt exposure is pretty intense. I figure if the winch isn't constantly exposed to salt it's going to be more reliable and pretty much last forever.

I've also got a Gladiator, so storing it in back if I',m going out to play is easy.

Finally, you have 2 choices.
1) a front hitch mount - which is inexpensive and relatively light if you keep the factory plastic front bumper. Several brands exist. Most of the ones linked to below rate at 9000 lb for straight line pull.

This option costs roughly $150 and weighs about 40 lbs.
https://www.etrailer.com/s.aspx?qry=Jeep+Wrangler+Front+Receiver+Hitch

2) Rock Hard makes a front bumper with a receiver built in.

This option weighs 140 lb and cost $1300
https://www.rockhard4x4.com/product_p/rh-90217.htm

Regarding powering the winch, I went through all the math in a thread on jeepglatiatorforum.com but it's not nearly as much trouble as you would think. The easiest way to power it from the back is to just buy a small starting battery for $100 and use that. Again I did the math, but Energy=Force x Distance. Even with a 100 ft pull at 10,000 lb, a small starting battery would be able to provide 15+ pulls before discharging to a level that could harm the battery.

At the front, you would clamp directly to the battery.

I hope this helps.

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[Shibadog]

When I had mine I used a heavy duty plastic “truck box” to hold the winch and cables. When I was headed off road I’d throw the box in the back. The rest of the time it’s sit in the garage so as not to take up space in the Jeep. Worked quite well when needed.

 

[Jebiruph]

I like the idea of a hitch mounted winch that I can swap between vehicles or leave at home. I bought a 30' 1 guage jumper cable for power . I also have a spare battery (from replacing my main battery before it failed), so I bought a battery box with external connectors with the thought to power the winch from it while the battery box is connected with the jumper cable to the main battery.

Maybe I won'teven need the jumper cable based on @dcmdon 's calaculation. And I like @J0E 's idea of the snatch ring back to the frame.

My biggest concern was the robustness of the winch cradles, some of them seemed more robust than others.

 

[Yawnie'sPapa]

Agreed with straight line pull. 12K winch probably too heavy to carry back and forth. But disagree with bigger winch, other than carry weight. I have 12K winches on my JLR and my 3,200 lb TJR. I always use a snatch ring. So with a 12K winch on the receiver, use a snatch ring and anchor to the recovery hook on the frame. Now you've got half the pull on the receiver. Hopefully you're not in deep mud or otherwise so stuck that you need more than 4,000 lbs to recover. The only time you'd move the winch to the receiver is if you're wheeling solo, and most ppl are more conservative solo. I'd want to go with a very light winch, maybe a 5K. With a snatch ring if you can get on the first layer, you've got nearly 10K pull.

You hit on something I left out - many things can be done if you learn, train yourself, use parts other than the winch. With snatch blocks, soft shackles, other equipment, thinking and being creative one could pull a pretty heavy vehicle with a receiver mount. Distribute the load off the receiver.
It's really amazing how a person can rig things to pull sideways, backwards, use a small winch to pull something heavy by splitting the load, reducing the angle of the pull.
So if someone doesn't just toss the thing in the receiver and assume hey, I'm ready! - they can do it.
But first time they get over a few degrees angle and try a straight pull, no snatch blocks, full load on the receiver, they are likely going to see trouble.
One reason the hitch makers started labeling the front receivers for Jeeps is exactly what people are buying them for - winches. Otherwise there's no reason to have that sort of labeling on them. They never used to do that, it was all for towing, no other labels. But people started buying the front mount receivers and abusing them with uneducated winch pulls.

I had originally bought my receiver for 2 things, now I use it for just one reason -

 

[stumblinhorse]

I also use the winch for my equipment trailer. To pull stuff up onto the trailer. I like having flexibility. I had a warn on my JKUR. Thankfully I didn’t need to use it much. But it could not do anything with any other purpose.

But with an endless supply of money I would say drop a winch in your bumper and buy all the gear needed to do a backward self recovery. And while your at it, buy a snow anchor, because most of the time when snow stuck there isn’t something close enough to anchor on….

 

[GATORB8]

You hit on something I left out - many things can be done if you learn, train yourself, use parts other than the winch. With snatch blocks, soft shackles, other equipment, thinking and being creative one could pull a pretty heavy vehicle with a receiver mount. Distribute the load off the receiver.
It's really amazing how a person can rig things to pull sideways, backwards, use a small winch to pull something heavy by splitting the load, reducing the angle of the pull.
So if someone doesn't just toss the thing in the receiver and assume hey, I'm ready! - they can do it.
But first time they get over a few degrees angle and try a straight pull, no snatch blocks, full load on the receiver, they are likely going to see trouble.
One reason the hitch makers started labeling the front receivers for Jeeps is exactly what people are buying them for - winches. Otherwise there's no reason to have that sort of labeling on them. They never used to do that, it was all for towing, no other labels. But people started buying the front mount receivers and abusing them with uneducated winch pulls.

I had originally bought my receiver for 2 things, now I use it for just one reason -

I definitely see the 9k pull from your linked front hitch. But I don’t see anywhere near that rating on any JLU rear hitches. Note, the JT rear hitches are rated higher but are attached very differently.

 

[Yawnie'sPapa]

I definitely see the 9k pull from your linked front hitch. But I don’t see anywhere near that rating on any JLU rear hitches. Note, the JT rear hitches are rated higher but are attached very differently.

Yes, Granny Smith apples compared to Yellow Delicious apples.
The JT rear hitch is a different animal, and the front hitch is likely to have a much higher rating as well due to the mounting and method they are braced.
I guess the point is sort of - even the JT hitches aren't rated for what some beginners may try to load onto them with winches.

There's a wealth of information out there on what and how. I just suggest people be really careful if the route they choose is receiver mount. Do whatever it takes to keep the pull straight, and reduce the load that's directly on the hitch mount. A single snatch block can cut that load a lot, two even more making it very doable.
Heck, I'm an amateur at it....... way amateur.

 

[J0E]

A vehicles tow rating normally has little to do with the strength of the actual receiver.

It's typically limited by cooling capacity, power, braking, or handling.

With that said, none of us have any idea at what point a receiver will fail so care should be taken if things get heavy.

Exactly. Having done over 20 pulls with my 1.25" Kinetic rope at 7/8" rope breaking speeds, it's pretty safe to say 20K is safe. Thousands of Receiver Shackle Mounts have been sold, like this cheapo rated at 45K BS. I've seen dozens of hard kinetic pulls on utube from a hitch receiver, yet there's no reports of receiver failing.

Yanking with a kinetic rope from the receiver is so common, there's no way a winch line is going to put that much load on it. (With the caveats of straight line pull).

Regarding powering the winch, I went through all the math in a thread on jeepglatiatorforum.com but it's not nearly as much trouble as you would think. The easiest way to power it from the back is to just buy a small starting battery for $100 and use that. Again I did the math, but Energy=Force x Distance. Even with a 100 ft pull at 10,000 lb, a small starting battery would be able to provide 15+ pulls before discharging to a level that could harm the battery.

At the front, you would clamp directly to the battery.

I hope this helps.

A bigger JL main battery is a Group 48 rated at 65 Ah.

Disagree on the math. The back of the Excel calculation:

Feet	Ft/min	Min	hours	Amps	Ah
100	6.2	16.13	0.27	400	107.5

Calculations using zeon-8-winch

It's actually much worse that that. The 65Ah rating goes way below 12 V. Anything below 12V does permeant damage to the battery. The lower the voltage, the higher the amperage and the hotter the winch gets. Now add in 15% drop in pulling power with each layer.

A small battery in the back with 1 Ga jumper cables would be idea. 30' 1 gauge cables lose 10% voltage over 30'. I'd cut the jumpers down to the shortage distance you need to minimize voltage loss.

When I do a pull from my JLR, I do the two finger Taser salute to bump the idle up to 2,000 RPM. Because I have the tow package, I've got a 240 A alternator. On my TJR, long pulls are a PITA. It's got a 117 A alternator and no Tazer to bump the RPM.

But it's unlikely you'll need a 100' @ 8K pull. Wheeling solo you're much more likely to need a 2 foot, 3,000lb pull. A small battery would be perfect with that. I'd attach my volt meter to make sure it's not dropping below 12 V.

 

[Yawnie'sPapa]

There's where a phone with JSCAN comes in handy, and one of those bluetooth battery voltage monitors. You can bump up the RPM using your phone (and of course the MX+ adapter and SGW bypass cable) and your phone can also monitor battery voltage for you.
So you can have winch wireless remote in one hand, phone in the other and be watching voltage and bumping the RPM up.

 

[Yawnie'sPapa]

 

[Jebiruph]

Here's my battery box, built in voltmeter. https://www.napaonline.com/en/p/BK_MTBA890?impressionRank=12

 

[dcmdon]

JOe - you raise a great point. In all those YouTube videos I've watched, I've never seen a frame mount receiver yanked off.

 

[GATORB8]

Wondered what some people with more knowledge than me would think.

Im on the Jeep Talk Show podcast zoom room tonight, and had the opportunity to ask the Factor 55 rep about what ratings to use for factory hitches and tow hooks. Greg with Unofficial Use Only chimed in (Sema builder of the JTE and many others). Will be published tomorrow if y’all are interested.

Factor 55 doesn’t make winches, so I didn’t specifically ask about using a receiver mount winch.

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