2500# Harbor Freight winch install
 

Here are a few pictures of 2500# Harbor Freight winch installed on my daughter's Cazador 180xl Saturday. I had to extend the bumper out a few inches. The install went pretty smooth.
Hope everyone has a Happy New Year

Looks good .

Thanks

That turned out pretty nice. Does it have more than just two bolts holding it on to the mount? It might just be the picture, but that is what it looks like. I would be worried about it snapping the bolts under torsion if the winch isn't straight on.

That base of the winch only has two mounting holes so I welded it on too.

Wow, what a terrible design. I guess since it is such a light weight winch they figured it was all it needed, but sheesh.

You would of thought the would of had at least 4 bolts. But for $50 It didn't surprise me. It is a pretty good winch for the price. We tested it out it will drag the UTV sideways with very little effort. I'm going to wire in a manual switch too just in case the remote battery ever failed.

I got up early this morning and fabricated a land anchor out of flat bar and angle iron. I made it so it will fold up and fit in the ammo can. Places like the spillway doesn't have many trees to hook to so most will either carry pipe or rods they can drive in the ground or use a land anchor. The ground is soft and the anchor will dig it self deeper as you pull on it. After that I mounted an ammo can to store the anchor, tow strap and shackles.

Hopefully you have a line dampener in that box too?

Yes sir.

:tup:

I have already had the pleasure of witnessing a snapped winch line injure somebody. I am very safety minded because of it. I made one out of two pairs of tube socks and some rocks before for a friend on the trail once, just because he didn't know any better. Stripes and all lol.

Update.. Saturday morning I wired in a momentary toggle switch and mounted it on the dash. The remote is a nice feature if you want to operate it from a distance but sort of a pain in the butt that you have to either dig it out your pocket or accidently leave it at home or dead remote battery. This mod makes it more convenient to operate from the seat or just reaching over and flipping the switch. It was an easy mod (wish I would of taken pictures) All it takes is three wires and a three pole momentary switch. One wire from the Positive post in the control box and one wire each from in in and out post in the box. I got the information from this youtube video.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WaEEc00c9SA&t=919s

Does the switched power pass through either relays or solenoids?

It triggers the solenoid in the control box. You connect the wires to the same wires that the remote receiver is connected to. The remote will still operate as it did before.

I gutted the Bluetooth to stop the power draw on my grandfathers.

I just finished up wiring up my winch on my Rhino. I thought I would add to this post as I followed Jerry's advice (along with other's) and installed the aux. switch. I followed the details in the video from post #12. I added my own wrinkles as I also bought the plow discovered by PANDEMIC. I haven't put the plow together as I've been lazy and it's been pretty cold here in Michigan and it takes awhile to get the garage warmed up. Anyway, below is how I solved one of the issues Jerry brought up here. The winch has only two mounting holes. I solved this by drilling two more holes in the plate to align with the bolts that mount the winch to the spool carriage. See below;

I removed the bolts and went to the hardware store and bought two more, adding the thickness of the mounting plate. It's critical that they are centered and I counter sunk the holes to make sure they clear my mounting brackets.

I bought a switch off Amazon to raise and lower the plow. Once I watched the video, it was pretty easy to wire it up. I used the same colors the box has (yellow, white, and red) so that I wouldn't mix anything up. I plan on mounting the switch next to the key on the dash.

I tested everything tonight and it all works. I just have to feed the wires through, cut the hole for the switch, and get things put back together. As a side note, I did find that the front frame tubes were not the same on both sides. Braces are welded slightly different from side to side. This makes it hard to level the winch mount. I have the front off and am in the process of cutting and re-welding to get everything somewhat symmetrical.

Nice work David:tup:

Thanks, Jerry. You guys made this easy to do.

Update on the winch. Well after the spillway has been closed for over a year due to high river levels It finally reopened a few weekends ago. We loaded up the Atv, UTV and Hawk and spent the day out at the spillway. Of course my daughter had to test out every mud hole and ditch she came across. :hehe: She finally met her match on one deep ditch. We finally get to test everything out. Land anchor worked perfect. The winch drug her right out the ditch. :tup:
The larger tires really made a difference on the ground clearance. It's amazing what a couple of inches can make.