501 wrote:
Glad to see you got the KJ out and it's alright. I'm seeing the need for a winch too, might want to look into a front & rear hitch with a hitch mounted winch.
When I was looking iton recovery and wheeling set-ups for my KJ i saw a winch as a great cost effective way to add recovery capabilities to my rig. I would love to add traction in the form of lockers for at least the front, but that is no guarantee of not getting stuck. Aside from the alomst 1,000 bucks a diff for parts and install potential cost. So I went with the warn m8000. With the permanant mount in the ARB, i am stuck with a frontal recovery only, but I do not plan to wheel alone either.
I looked at the hitch mounted options and they look like a cost effective way of doing it with (what i felt was ) one MAJOR down side.
You may be able to do either a frontal or a rear recovery, but if you are pulling yourself out with a hitch mounted winch, depending on the conditions and how stuck you indeed are, you will need to be very careful as to the angle of the pull. Winch/hitch mounts are great for dead on 90 degree pulls from the KJ. But you start going off the 90 to a tree off the trail for an anchor point then you can put some stress on the hitch mount and can torque it pretty good.
Saw a guy bend the crap out of his hitch mount on his f 150 one day. Seamed like a good idea at the time and it did pull his truck out, but the entire hitch had to be cut off and the winch was saved but all that money for a mount and the hitch was toast.
Unfortunatly most good anchors are NOT directly infront or behind you when you get stuck, some are, most aren't.
Best thing is to NOT WHEEL ALONE.