elbekko

Pah, at the rate you're going? It'll be good to see you there either way

Test camp at Seven Sisters then?

Indeed, not tightening those 4 bolts allows the heads to expand and contract more evenly, thus reducing gasket failures. It pretty much fixed the head gasket issues RV8s were known for before that.

And lots of people that take a perverse pleasure in fixing with electrics...

Glad to see you alive and well, and hope to see you and Sid at seven sisters!

It has crush mounts behind the stock bumper. That's about it. I mostly wonder why the 8mm. Especially if there's barely any twist in the system when mounting the winch feet-forward. 5mm, especially in a U-channel, should be more than plenty strong. Remember: as I have it now, it'll be a 5mm U, with 3mm plate welded top and bottom of the U. I don't think it'll move. Hence my initial design brief: try to make it strong without just throwing heavy plate at it. In that line of thinking I could just do a Nige and make everything out of 10mm plate. I'd rather "faff about" and try to find an optimal design. This is not a winch challenge truck either, the goal is mainly self recovery and maybe some marshalling-type stuff. I'll try and get some drawings sent out to get stuff cut out. Would be nice to get it in by Seven Sisters, but we'll see. That's not far away and I've got a lot to do...

Sounds like a warranty issue? You can also check the manual if there's any way to force a reboot of the system, that can fix things sometimes too.

Yeah, 8mm seems massively overkill. And I can always add bracing later on if need be, but I doubt I'll need it.

That's a good point, it would probably be wise to put another slot in it somewhere so I can see the drum.

You can see that here:

That looks pretty good. And smart to add it to the outside plates, so a double-line pull would load both plates. Also in line with my first thought of extending those plates out through the front plate to form a ring, but I think round bar will work and look better.

Realistically the bumper will have to come off to get to the winch. But that's no huge issue, I think

Thanks for confirming my initial thinking. And I think with this design that line of force is about as direct as it can get. The 5mm cradle is probably a good tradeoff in strength vs weight, and allows me to make the rest of the bumper out of thinner material. Speed holes aren't the worst idea, might be worth putting some in the bottom plate to reduce weight. And would help with drainage. Part of the radiator is behind there, and without the slots too much airflow would be blocked. The stock bumper has slots there as well, for that reason.

That's what I did to get it in a good position for feet-forward. But not sure how well that'd work feet-down. The standard position it with the freespool straight up, and then it'd go straight into the body/grille. All solvable, but this way it actually comes out quite neatly just in front of the body line.

That's a good idea, I could pop a piece of angle over the back. I was under the impression that feet-forward would be easier to make stronger, lightly. Hence why that was my original design decision. Feet down could definitely work, but would make accessing the freespool a little bit harder, as it's popping up in a perfect spot right now.

In my mind that seems the stronger direction for all the forces involved. Feet down you're trying to twist the bottom plate into a pretzel between the chassis legs. But I'm no engineer

Made another iteration, with the cradle as one piece of 5mm, and outer chassis plates 5mm as well. The rest is 3mm. This brought the estimated weight down to 33kg, and 3kg for the skid plate (also from 3mm). That seems a little bit more reasonable. And should be sturdier too. Boxing in the lips is a good idea, not sure how easy that'll be to do. One side has the windshield washer reservoir there... That's a good point, and a good reason for the 5mm cradle. It'll also be welded along the side plates to the top and bottom plate, which should stiffen things up substantially. I've also been playing with the idea of supporting the winch on the bottom and top plate using some tabs that go to the tie bars. That would remove even more twist from the system, I think. I managed to find it in Fusion now - a lofted flange. In the previous iteration I modelled it as a solid and converted to sheet metal, but it didn't want to make a flat pattern from that. Now it does want to, which is good. I would think this is probably fairly similar in size and design to the ARB (but without the wings). Tubular ones are usually lighter, yes, but also fugly on a P38... For the record, with some dimensions:

I'll see if I can knock out a design for that tonight, shouldn't be too difficult. Any feedback on recovery points? I see on your pictures you had small rings, was that good or would you have preferred something else?

Even with feet forward? It should minimise the twisting forces you get with feet down, and is stiffened up by the 5mm plates top and bottom. But yes, it's a concern. Hence why I'm thinking of making the winch cradle a single, bent piece of 5mm, and then 3mm for the wings. Thinking, maybe it would be better to have the top and bottom plates 3mm, and the front plate 5mm? Would probably reduce the weight a bit as well. Or everything 3mm except for the winch U cradle at 5mm. Then I don't have to try and bend 5mm plate for the curved corners.

I've been thinking about getting a winch bumper for my P38 for a while. Nothing out there really speaks to me. Either it's ugly or ludicrously expensive. I want something that follows the stock bumper and body lines as closely as possible, and is sturdy but doesn't weigh more than the moon. I bought this winch a while back: VEVOR 13.5k winch It appears to be surprisingly decent quality. I've had the gearbox open to clock the freespool lever, and everything inside looks good. Decent grease in there too, although I'll probably replace that anyway. The only thing I might change (eventually) is the solenoid, as it's a bit too chinese to my liking. Overall, it seemed very much worth it for the price. So, onto the design. I've been battling Fusion 360, but I think I'm starting to get sort of used to it. The top, bottom and chassis plates are 5mm, the front plate is 3mm. The idea is to use S355 for some extra strength. Integrated skidplate/radiator protector which bolts to the front chassis crossmember. Winch goes feet forward, pulling force should be pretty well in line with the bolts through the chassis. Some stiffening ribs can probably be added in the side wings here and there. Fusion estimates the bumper is around 42kg like this, which I think is fairly in line with bumpers like this? Maybe a little more than I would've liked. But doesn't seem any worse than the FirstFour bumper I had on my RRC, that had its own gravitational field. The winch is modelled very roughly, but should be close enough for the purpose. My main points I'd like feedback on: * Will the 3mm front plate be enough to take the forces from the winch? Or should I maybe more go for a "cradle" of 5mm plate that is a U bent up between the chassis rails, and then skin the remainder in 3mm? * How hard will it be to bend 3mm plate around that curve? My idea is to weld and hammer, but not sure how well that'll work, especially with S355? * How do I get Fusion to give me a flat pattern for the whole front plate, including the curves? It refuses to see it as a bend, so won't put it into a DXF correctly. Worst case I need to remodel it somewhere to get it cut out. * Not sure how/where to add recovery points yet. In between the chassis plates would probably be best, but can't really decide what I want. My first thought was to extend the chassis plate through the bumper as an eye, but that's then only 5mm plate, and won't be easy to make and make look good. Feedback and thoughts very welcome A dump of pictures. The blue component is the body line. The little cylinder coming out at an angle is the freespool lever (clockable per 30ish degrees).

Very glad to hear. Thanks for checking in!

I'm starting to wonder as well. Hopefully just busy with work? His profile says last visit on the 30th of april...

There's a company near me that specialises in plates like that. They have a decent stock of lightly damaged / returned plates, at less than half price. I grabbed some of those when I made a roof for the dog shed. Was it overkill the give the dog shed roof 6cm of insulation? Yes, but the price was right You might have similar companies close to you.

Looking very good!

Metal roofing sheets would be my call. Get some with insulation attached to them to reduce noise and have some insulation in the shed as well.