Winch work
The front of the Discovery has looked a bit ‘ bare’ since fitting the ARB bull bar ( originally from Project Re-A-Range) and it needed a winch.
I had tossed up taking the Warn 8274 off the 90 and fitting that, or even the Gigglepin winch that sits on the bench at Dodgy Bros. The Gigglepin wasn’t going to be an easy fit requiring too much modification to the bull bar and I was reluctant to take the winch off the 90, after all it was been on there for nearly 24 years now.
Anyway a chance purchase of a secondhand Warn 8274 had me shelling out the cash. It still had the wire cable that was in good condition and was mounted in a winch plate and frame to fit a Toyota. ( That winch plate is available cheap if you want it.)
Removed from the frame the intention was to give it a quick check over and to clean up the housing before fitting. The drum was removed along with the top housing and inside the oil was clean and the gears all looked in very good condition indicating it hadn’t done a lot of work. But stripping the brake down required a bit of effort with one pad rusted to the disc and the disc needing some persuasion to come off the brake shaft.
A brake service kit was going to be required so I set to trying to clean up the housings and end plate which seemed to have ingrained dirt into the alloy. The water blaster didn’t achieve the desired result and I started searching for ways to clean them when friends said they had a bead blaster and could bead blast them for me. So it was masked up and left with Norm and Brendan who worked their magic on it and in 24 hours I was picking it up again.
With it so clean I wanted it to stay that way, and a nice coat of paint would finish it off nicely, so it was etch primed before applying a couple of coats of VHT gunmetal grey. The ribs on the top housing were left bare alloy and housing given a clear coat, again using VHT paint cans, to ensure they stayed looking good.
By now I had the brake service kit so the brake shaft and brake was reassembled but when I went to fit the drum it was decided that a new drum seal would ensure it wouldn’t be leaking oil in the near future, so a call was made to Fully Equipped. The seal comes as a complete drum seal kit and while they didn’t have one in East Tamaki, Hamilton did and they would get it up for me.
All assembled, the next stage was to fit it into the bull bar. I understood the 8274 winch was a direct fit into ARB bull bars for Range Rover but this proved not to be the case. The bolt holes were correct but the top lip of the bar and the side angle back stopped the winch from bolting straight up. The bar had to be severely trimmed, weakening the winch mounting face, or spacers were required. A quick measure and off to Nigel at Eastside Metal Fabricators next door who would make up some spacers for me the next day out of 10mm plate. Initially I figured 20mm would be enough, but at the last minute I said 30mm ( 6 x 10mm plates) which was what was needed in the end to reduce the amount of trimming required of the bull bar. These plates were painted black with CRC Zinc It.
Because of the spacers the bolts and square nuts I had previously purchased were now too short, so it was off to get longer bolts – with the help of Nicholas who had the misfortune to stop in when the bull bar needed fitting back on the vehicle. An electrician by trade he also undertook to sort out the wiring while he was there.
Next step was cutting the grille to fit around the winch. As it is, it only has a small piece left under the bonnet keeping the grille as one piece. On closing the bonnet it was very close to the top of the winch motor, so I adjusted the bonnet stops out a little further to give a mm or two more clearance.
Final step was bolting up the roller fairlead to the bull bar using bolts through the side rollers rather than the original pins and circlips.
A quick test to make sure it powers in and out properly and also that the free spool works as it should and I was ready for Ice Buster weekend. Pity I never got the opportunity to use it!